


All of the Above

by perfectlystill



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Cheating, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 09:35:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3244781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlystill/pseuds/perfectlystill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts, much to Raven's chagrin, under the bleachers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All of the Above

**Author's Note:**

> A few things:
> 
> 1\. The tags referencing alcoholism and child abuse have to do with Raven's mother, and there's not much detail about either, but there are a few references. 
> 
> 2\. I smooshed people's ages together to get this to work. Specifically, Bellamy is only one school year older than Clarke and Raven. Magic! (Octavia is probably a school year younger than Clarke and Raven, if you're wondering.) 
> 
> 3\. The biggest thank you in the world to [Ares](http://archiveofourown.org/users/absoluteares/pseuds/absoluteares) for being the most encouraging friend. I never would have finished this if I hadn't been able to send her completely unedited sections -- that, rereading some of those typos, I'm not sure how she made sense of. Her enthusiastic responses and support meant and means the world to me, as did her sending me music, poetry and writing as inspiration. All mistakes are my own. 
> 
> 4\. No one's teen-angst bullshit has a body count.

> _Our love is God. Let's go get a slushie._  
>  HEATHERS

 

 

 

It starts, much to Raven's chagrin, under the bleachers.

She zips up her hoodie and shoves her hands into the pockets. There's a pack of cigarettes in the left one that she thinks about opening. It would be terrible, if she did that: Girl smokes cigarettes under the bleachers while the football team practices on the field. Rephrase that and you get something even more cliché: Girl smokes cigarettes under the bleachers while her cheating boyfriend practices with the football team on the field. Playing the field, she thinks, and she grins, almost amused.

Before Raven has time to contemplate that reality, Bellamy swings himself under the bleachers. "Thought I'd find you here," he says.

"I told you I'd be here." She raises an eyebrow and pulls the cigarettes out of her pocket. "Want one?"

"No, thanks." He stops in front of her. "What did you want?"

Raven inhales, shoving the pack of cigarettes into her pocket.

If she was a better person, she would ask if he has weed. He doesn't: Jasper and Monty, who attend the private school down the road, sell weed. She's never seen Bellamy partake, and she's never cared enough to ask why. If she was a better person, she'd offer him some of her mother's alcohol stash for a discounted rate -- Raven wouldn't even have to pretend to need the cash. She always needs the cash. If she was a better person, she'd have an innocent enough excuse for why she asked him here. If she was a better person, she wouldn't have asked him to come at all. But she's not. She forgot to do her pre-calc homework last night because she was too busy making sure her mother didn't choke on her own vomit. Her boyfriend has cheated on her with half the cheerleading squad. And Raven feels desperation clawing its way up her throat. It doesn't hurt.

She wants it to hurt again, like it did the first time she saw Finn talking to the head cheerleader. The way her hand had brushed his arm and the way he'd smiled against her ear. The betrayal had rippled through her. She'd clenched her jaw and curled her fists and blinked back tears. She hadn't cried until she was alone in her room, trying to write an essay about Desdemona. Then, she'd cried a lot, silently. The ripples lessened each time it happened, like she was the water and, as the rock sunk to the bottom, there was nothing to move her anymore.

It doesn't hurt.

She pulls Bellamy in by the worn leather of his jacket and kisses him.

He pushes her away and she feels the slap of rejection sharp against her skin. "What?" she asks.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" His voice is lower now, rough and serious. He's eyeing her like maybe she's lost her mind.

"Yes." 

"Because there are other things you could do. Like break up with him."

Raven swallows. Bellamy has always been too good at reading her. It's comforting to know that while he's in the vicinity, he doesn't quite hit a bullseye. Because she can't do that, she can't break up with Finn. He's her ride to school, the boy who makes her laugh when all she can think about is crying, the boy she loves. She loves him. Which is the worst part. She _loves_ him and he can't stop fucking other girls.

She can't break up with him, but she can do this. She can smash her mouth against Bellamy's until he yields, until he plants his hands on her waist, fingers digging in, his tongue slipping into her mouth. It's rough and hard and it hurts.

It's exactly what Raven wanted.

 

 

 

Finn's sunglasses perch on his nose and his practice jersey smells in the backseat. Raven runs a hand through her hair. It's knotted, and the elastic she took out is biting into her wrist. She rubs her lips together, had smeared the single tube of chapstick she owns over her mouth. She can still feel Bellamy's hands on her hips and under her shirt, the cold metal of the bleachers against her back. She wonders if any of it left a mark, and she wonders if it would even matter if it did. 

"Have a lot of homework?" Finn asks, hand against the shoulder of her seat, looking behind the car as he backs out of the space.

Raven shrugs. "Nothing more than usual."

The parking lot is mostly empty, but Bellamy's leaning against his beat up car, probably waiting for Octavia to get out of dance practice. He's folded the left side of the book he's reading over, and she knows he's breaking the binding because whenever he pulls out a book in class, it looks like the pages are about to fall out -- it doesn't matter the book, they always look like that.

"You?" she asks.

"I have an entire science packet due tomorrow. It's like 10 pages or something." He looks both ways before pulling out of the lot and onto the street. This is the only time he ever remembers to look both ways.

"Oh." Raven frowns before resting her hand on Finn's knee. 

He grins at her when he reaches a stoplight. "You could help me with it, you know."

"Not a chance." She shakes her head. "I can't deprive you of your education."

"I said _help_ , Raven, not do it for me."

She bites back a smile. "That's also what you said the time I did that entire algebra worksheet for you."

"You liked that," he protests. "You should've seen your face when you found one of the answers in the key at the bottom."

"Not even a little." Raven slides her hand further up his thigh. She likes the way Finn's hands tighten around the wheel, so she does it again.

"Raven," he says, almost like a warning. He flexes his fingers, blows past a stop sign. 

He turns onto their street and really, that's close enough for her. She trails her fingers along the inseam of his jeans. "Finn," she taunts.

"You don't have to," he starts, stumbling over the words. "I don't know what's gotten into you. If you don't want--"

"Shut up." She leans her body over the center console, tucks his too long hair behind his ear and presses a kiss against his temple. It's uncomfortable and Raven almost feels like she's going to fall over. "Want to."

She blows him, car parked in his driveway, bracing herself with one hand on the console, leaning over it awkwardly. Her hair falls down, and she's not used to it, she's not used to blowing him when her hair isn't tucked up in a ponytail. It's harder. She can't look up and see his face. The first time she did this she was nervous, couldn't' stop looking up at him, and he was looking down at her like she was so much more than she is. She remembers the times when he'd bite his lip and close his eyes and try to be quiet because his parents were home. She remembers the first time he didn't look down at her at all.

He always puts his hand on her head, though, a gentle pressure that she always takes to mean: _I'm here and I'm not going anywhere_. If she's feeling particularly romantic, and Raven thinks people would classify it as teenager, so if she's feeling particularly teenager, she starts to think it's an apology.

She knows it's not. And if he means it as one, it isn't good enough.

Finn seems to like her hair down. He runs his fingers through it now, tugs reassuringly. He says her name quietly, and there's a sadness to it. Raven can read him. She knows him, knows what he sounds like when he's sad, when he's gotten a good grade on a test he thought he failed, when his parents have been fighting more than usual and it's made him tired. She knows him, and he sounds sad now, when he says her name. But he still comes, and she still swallows and wipes at her mouth.

"That didn't take long." She smirks.

He shakes his head, pushes at her shoulder. "Yeah, well. Look at you."

She bites her lip. "Let's go inside. You have a science packet to do."

"What about you?"

"I'm good." Finn doesn't believe her; she can see it on his face. "I promise. I'm good."

He gives. He's easy like that.

 

 

 

The back door to Finn's house rattles behind her as she crosses his lawn and into her own yard. The strap of her backpack digs into her shoulder. It's dark and the sky is cloudy. Raven can't see the stars, but the moon is settled just above the horizon. It's chilly now and she can feel goosebumps pop up on her skin under her jacket. Her knuckles brush against the pack of cigarettes when she shoves her hands into her pockets.

There's a light on in the kitchen, but the backdoor is locked and she doesn't see her mom.

Raven sits down on the cracked cement porch, drops her backpack beside her and pulls out her lighter. She just watches the flame flicker for a minute, stares at it until her eyes blur. She got most of her work done at Finn's house, and if she's being honest, she's probably not going to read the AP government chapter. She shivers, lights a cigarette, inhales and holds the smoke as long as possible, as though it's weed and not just nicotine. She likes the way the smoke looks against the sky when she exhales, white clouds against hazy black.

She plans on staying there until the cigarette burns out, but she hears a crash from inside the house. Raven sighs and stubs out the cigarette. If she cared, and if she actually liked smoking, she'd save it.

Her mom is inside, picking up large pieces of a ceramic plate. Her eyes are bloodshot and she's on her tiptoes to avoid the smaller fragments. "Hey honey," she says.

"Hi. What are you doing?"

"Washing dishes." She delicately picks up a sliver by her toes.

"That's one way to do it," Raven says. "I'll get the broom."

After she's swept up the plate, her mother makes peanut butter sandwiches for dinner, pouring herself a glass of whiskey. Raven gets water from the tap and they sit at the kitchen table. It's eerie, the way the kitchen light glows around them, simultaneously bright and so dim. The rest of the lights in the house are still off, and it makes Raven feel like it's later than it is, like they woke up in the middle of the night for milk and cookies.

"School was good," Raven says when her mom pours herself another glass.

"Good." Her mother gulps down half her drink.

"I'm getting straight A's."

"I'm so proud of you, Raven." Her mom's eyes are starting to get that far-off quality they always do when she drinks. Her mom stands up, kisses the top of her head and pats her shoulder. "So proud of you."

Raven watches her walk into the next room, glass in hand. Her mother holds her whiskey glass like it's a champagne flute. She looks like royalty floating through a party, distant and sure, back straight. It's in these moments when Raven remembers how pretty her mom is -- how pretty she used to be.

 

 

 

Raven is fixing the accelerator on one of the cars in autoshop when she hears Bellamy clear his throat. "What?" she asks.

"Octavia's at dance, and you weren't pretending to smoke under the bleachers, so." He shrugs like it's nothing, like he didn't put any effort into tracking her down. 

Raven grabs the towel she threw on the cart and wipes her hands. "Pretending to smoke?"

"Either you go through a pack a day, which I doubt, considering you never smell like smoke, or you've been playing with the same pack of cigarettes for the last two weeks." He's got a smug look on his face.

"That's creepy." Raven rolls her eyes. "And I smoke. I'm just not an addict."

She smokes. That's true. But it's been two weeks and she's only gone through five cigarettes, only actually finished one, and the fifth she gave to Octavia. But she's not going to tell Bellamy that. Because she doesn't want him to think he's right, and because if she told him the part about Octavia, he'd probably find a way to murder her. The other truth is that she didn't think he was paying close enough attention to notice at all.

"If you really want to think you're bad, Reyes, so be it." His smirk is definitely annoying, and it should be smarmy, but for some reason it isn't. "Sure picked a cliché way to go about it, though."

"You know, you're not even supposed to be in here." Raven takes a step forward.

"What? You gonna tell Mr. Wick?" He looks her up and down, raises an eyebrow. "You gonna punish me?"

"You're disgusting," she says.

Autoshop has the same fluorescent lights of the rest of the school plugged into the ceiling, but Mr. Wick has found a way to dim them slightly, make them more palatable. Bellamy looks good under them, against the backdrop of metal and tools. He shrugs. "I'm not the one with grease on my forehead."

He eliminates the space between them, rubbing at her forehead with the pad of his thumb. It's stupid, she knows, because it's not going to do anything but get grease on his thumb. But she looks up at him, at the press of his mouth and the furrow of his eyebrows. It makes her uncomfortable, how gently he's touching her and the softness in his eyes.

She kisses him. 

She can tell it takes him by surprise, but then he's kissing her back, crowding her until her legs meet the front of the car. She can't lean back because the hood is up. Raven presses her hands against his chest but doesn't push him away, and when she slips his jacket off his shoulders she can hear the clatter of keys as they hit the ground.

Bellamy has yet to try and kiss her slow and gentle. It's all teeth and tongues and his fingers digging into her bones. She likes the way he slips his hand under her shirt, how his palm is so wide it practically covers her entire stomach. His fingers aren't rough but they're not soft either, and she shivers, presses herself closer to him. She wants to find a solid surface to lean against, thinks she needs something firm to hold herself up against, something other than his body.

He yields, lets her lead him over to the workbench nailed into the wall. She breaks away to clear a space, but his hands are still on her, under her shirt, pressing against her hips over her jeans.

Raven likes that too much. She likes that when she kisses Bellamy -- and she always kisses him first, like he's still not sure how this works, like he thinks there's a number of times they can make out before she's gotten even with Finn and doesn't need him anymore. But it's not about getting even, not really -- he can't stop touching her.

She hops onto the bench and he bites at her neck.

She trusts him not to leave a mark.

 

 

 

The first time she sleeps with Bellamy it's over a month and a half into this _thing_ they have going. It's right before Thanksgiving and his car is parked in the gravel lot across the street from the school. He's got the keys in the ignition and the heat turned on. 

"The last football game of the season's this Friday," he says, nonchalant, messing with the dials on the radio.

"Yep." Raven nods before shrugging out of her jacket. Her fingers still feel stiff, but the car is warm.

She knows what he's getting at: it's become routine for them to spend the two hours after school ends together, when Finn is at football practice and Octavia is at dance practice and they're both doing the waiting game. He's sat in autoshop doing homework while she's worked on cars. They've both sat outside their lockers, inch of space between them as they do their reading. They've worked on math homework together. They make out a lot, too, but not every day. Once, Bellamy just looked exhausted and had curled up in the backseat of his car, sleeping while Raven fiddled with the engine.

She doesn't know what to say to the question Bellamy's not asking.

"Are you ready for Friday's math test?" she asks. "Imaginary numbers can be a real bitch."

"Raven." He's looking at her like she's being purposely obtuse.

She sighs, shifts so her back's against the window. The glass is cold through the fabric of her shirt, and she brings her legs up, rests her feet on the seat and rests her chin on her knees. "It's fine. It doesn't matter."

"Right." He reaches out and wraps a hand around her ankle. "It doesn't matter."

His face is so serious. Raven doesn't like it. "Don't be weird."

"You're the weird one."

"That didn't make you sound five." She snorts and brushes at the thin, baby hairs on her forehead before pulling at her sleeves, trying to pull them down over her palms.

"Can you please, just." He slides his hand up, over her leggings. She crosses her eyes to follow the movement and then lifts her head.

"Just what?"

"Stop being a smartass for five seconds."

"Did I hurt your feelings?" Raven sticks her bottom lip out. Bellamy rolls his eyes.

He hooks his forefinger under the collar of her shirt, knuckle pressed against her collarbone, and tugs. She moves forward and kisses him.

When they break apart, his eyes are blown and the radio has gone to commercial, one of those annoying ones that has a catchy jingle. She looks at the clock and then reaches behind her, opens the door. "Come on." Her voice is quiet. "Let's go to the backseat."

He's got a condom in his backpack, and Raven hits his arm, groaning, because _of course_ he does.

She doesn't come, and she thinks he can tell. He's looking at her funny and his hand is splayed high on her thigh and he asks, "Do you want me to? Just, tell me what you want."

"It's fine." And when he arches an eyebrow she slaps his hand away, laughs and finds it's not as forced as she thought it would be. "It's okay. It was good."

Raven would make a crack about how he did his best and better luck next time -- because he did, he listened, let her tell him what to do with his hands and what usually works for her. She tries not to think about how Finn always gets her off when she lets him, how he hasn't failed to get her off in six months. It's not fair because Finn's had time to learn her body -- and he needed it at first, they both needed it. Raven thinks that in time Bellamy will be able to get her off too, that when he does he won't look at her like she's a sad thing.

She doesn't want to think about that, either.

She smiles small and pushes at Bellamy's shoulder. "We don't have a lot of time left. Let's study for pre-calc."

 

 

 

Raven tucks her feet to the side as she flips through the channels on the television in Finn's living room. She can hear the pop of popcorn in the microwave. It's late but his mother's working the night shift and his father's already asleep upstairs. His mother would have sent Raven home by now, but his father doesn't care as long as they're quiet and Finn doesn't knock Raven up.

"You've been through all 16 channels like 10 times," Finn says. He smiles and holds out a beer.

"There's nothing on." She pops the tab and takes a swig. It's watery.

"Something's always on. We can watch infomercials." Finn sits down, bowl of popcorn in his lap. Raven works her feet under his thigh.

"I can't listen to your rice-o-matic song again."

"You think it's funny."

Raven sighs. "Yeah. I did. The first five thousand times."

"You laughed so hard soda came out of your nose."

"Whatever." He raises an eyebrow before stuffing a handful of popcorn into his mouth. He chews with his mouth open, obnoxious and disgusting and on purpose. Raven shoves him and he grins. "Can we put in a movie?"

"Go ahead." He motions toward the small DVD case next to the television, but Raven doesn't want to get up. She knows if she does he'll lie across the sofa and refuse to move when she wants to sit down. She'll have to lie next to him, smooshed against him. She doesn't know if he'd wrap his arms around her or push at her, trying to knock her off the sofa. She doesn't want to risk it, and she doesn't want to know why tonight, in her head, those options seem to carry different connotations than they should.

Finn's been weird lately. He'll kiss her temple and pull her against his side when they're walking down the halls, and then a few minutes later he'll turn his head and pretend he didn't know Raven was leaning in to press her lips against his.

Last week, when her mother was downstairs with a man, blasting old rock music, Raven thought about it too much.

It's been a few weeks since she's seen Finn with someone else, whispering in their ear and running his hand over their shoulder, which should be comforting, but somehow isn't. He's been around less, too. On Tuesdays and Thursdays he drops her off at her house and has excuses: "I need to run errands for my mom," or "I promised the boys we could hang out," or "I have a dentist appointment." She doesn't know what it means.

Raven doesn't like to let her mind wander for the sake of wandering, but it'd been late that night and her eyes had hurt and she couldn't sleep. The sheets on her bed were scratchy and she heard the man laughing, even over Rush. She'd thought about the time she'd been at her locker with Bellamy between classes and Finn had come up. He'd looked between them, mouth pressed together, and shrugged. He hadn't touched her, and Bellamy made his exit.

Raven doesn't like to wonder about things she'll never know the answer to, but she wondered if maybe Finn knew. 

She reaches over, grabs a piece of popcorn and turns it around in her fingers. "You're impossible."

 

 

 

The thing about getting a ride to school with Finn every day is that when he's sick or wants to ditch, Raven doesn't go either. She could walk two blocks and wait for the bus, but she doesn't want to because it's crowded and always smells faintly of vomit and cleaning supplies.

Raven remembers the first time he ditched. Finn had picked her up like usual and then turned the wrong way out of the neighborhood. She'd told him to go back repeatedly, but he'd grinned and told her they deserved a break and "You know you want to. Stick to the man and all that." They'd gone to iHop and he'd payed for her blueberry pancakes. The waitress tucked her pen behind her ear and didn't look at them like she knew they were supposed to be in class. That had settled Raven a little. Finn isn't all that original, so they'd gone to the mall after breakfast, wandering around, his hand in hers.

When she thinks about being happy, she thinks about that day. Not because anything spectacular happened, but because it had all seemed normal and Finn's hand had been warm. She thinks she's stroked over it with nostalgia, has maybe forgotten the syrup that got on her sleeve and left a stain, has forgotten watching Finn try on ridiculous hats for half an hour after it stopped actually being funny. But it doesn't really matter if that's true, because it's carved a spot in her heart and the longing she feels for it is the kind that makes her smile, right side of her mouth curving up more than the left.

Today, Finn texts her about having stayed up all night marathoning some television show she's never heard of and says he's heading to bed.

He doesn't invite her over, not that she would want to like, hang out at his house while he's sleeping.

Raven spends the day cleaning because if she doesn't nobody will. She scrubs the toilets, fixes a drip in the bathroom sink and mops the kitchen floor. She butters a piece of bread and eats it for lunch. She does her makeup three different times in three different ways just to see what it does to her face, and by the time she's done her skin feels tight and raw from washing it clean between applications. She's scrolling through her Facebook feed as though she actually cares what her classmates are thinking when the doorbell rings.

It's half after three, and Finn hasn't responded to her text.

She almost just leaves it. Whoever it is will go away.

Then again, the doors are locked and it wouldn't be the first time her mother's misplaced or forgotten her key.

Raven swings open the door and Bellamy's standing there, backpack slung over one shoulder. His mouth turns up and he says, "So, you don't look deathly ill."

"What are you doing here?"

"Brought you the math homework."

She bites her lip. "You can come in, if you want."

"Thanks." She steps to the side and he brushes her shoulder when he walks by.

As Bellamy stands in the entrance and looks around -- at the stairs with the old, plush orange carpet from the 70s, the endtable with chipped white paint, and the small hallway that leads to the kitchen -- Raven shifts her weight. "Nice place." There is nothing sarcastic about it, and Raven feels her shoulders relax. "Are we going to keep standing here or . . . ?"

"Here's good." He starts at that, eyebrows pulling together. "I'm kidding." Raven laughs and then smiles with her teeth. "We can go upstairs."

Bellamy follows her to her room. He runs his fingers along the trophies on top of her bookshelf, and Raven sits on the end of her bed so she can't see his face. She crosses her arms over her chest and looks at his back, his broad shoulders and the way his hair curls at the nape of his neck. He leans to look at the books a row down, and Raven can feel the silence prickle all over. She's good at silence when she's doing something: studying his math problem for the mistake, fixing a car's radiator, smoking half a cigarette. She's not so good at it now. It feels too settled and intimate and something like guilt itches at the back of her head for the first time in a long time.

"You ever gonna give me the math homework?" she asks.

"You own a copy of _Twilight_ ," he says. Bellamy pulls the book from the shelf and leans back against it, flipping through the pages. "O loved this book."

"It's stupid."

He shrugs, eyes skimming over the words. "Not as stupid if you like it."

"I _don't._ " She clenches her jaw, fights the urge to stand up and rip it out of his hands.

He looks up at her, friendly and mocking and, almost inexplicably, she wants to kiss him.

"My mom got it for me," she says. "For my birthday two years ago."

She hadn't asked for anything, and she hadn't expected anything. If she had asked for something it would've been something like a backpack that wasn't fraying or socks or a tube of mascara. It was the only gift she got that year, besides the little heart-shaped necklace from Finn, and her mom had even wrapped it in newspaper. Raven read the entire book that night. She put it on her bookshelf the next morning and hasn't touched it since. She found the story gross and grossly engaging and she hates that there are parts of it that appealed to her.

"Cool," he replies, nonchalant. Bellamy slides the book back carefully. "Maybe I'll have to borrow it sometime."

Raven laughs and rolls her eyes. "You should."

Bellamy gives her the math homework and he tells her that Octavia and his mother read _Twilight_ together -- well, not _together_ , but at the same time. His mom when she was working the graveyard shift at her second job. Raven doesn't realize their shoulders are touching until Bellamy looks at his phone. "I've got to pick up Octavia. She'll freak if I'm late."

"Yeah, you should go."

Raven blinks and looks at his mouth.

It's winter and it's getting dark outside and everything in her room looks blue and she kisses him.

He kisses her back, soft and slow. "See you tomorrow."

 

 

 

She goes to the party with Finn, and she leaves the party with Bellamy. 

The party is at Jasper's house. His house isn't huge, but it's big enough for a party. There's music, but it sounds weird and experimental and doesn't make the floor vibrate. There's enough room to maneuver around the various groups of people, but not really much more than that. Jasper's hung caution tape across the stairs and posted a sign asking people to _please not enter_ with a frowning face drawn under it. The entire house smells vaguely like weed, and there's a keg set up in the kitchen next to a stack of multicolored Solo cups.

"Raven! Finn!" Monty comes barreling through the crowd, enveloping them in a hug. Finn's got both his hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket, and Raven can feel him elbow her in the side as he tries to pull them out and they're jostled together.

"Hey," Finn says. He smiles crooked. "How are you, man?"

"Good. Jasper and I are working on a top secret science fair project. Can't tell you. You know, in case you steal it or something."

"You know me." Finn shrugs. "Super into science."

Raven snorts. "Only the explosions."

"Those are the best parts," Monty says. He turns around, picking up two cups and holding them out.

Finn grabs the green one. "You realize if I ask Jasper he'll just tell me, right?"

Monty pouts. "Please don't ask Jasper."

"Just because his misguided boyfriend thinks you're super cool, don't take advantage." Raven steps around Monty to fill her cup with beer, and when she takes a sip she can feel the foam on her upper lip. She licks at it and then wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand. "Where is he, anyway?"

Monty's pout turns into a frown, face pulling together comically. "Last I saw he was trying to break dance. It was embarrassing."

"Aw." Raven scrunches up her nose and hits his shoulder. "You love him so much."

"The heart wants what the heart wants," Monty sing-songs, mouth twitching into a grin.

"I think I'll track him down," Finn says. He leaves the kitchen, empty green cup in hand.

"Probably gonna try to get into a break dancing contest with him." Raven rolls her eyes. He's such an idiot.

She finishes her first two cups of beer in the kitchen with Monty, talking about thermodynamics and free radicals and how Jasper has made Monty fall in love with banana and peanut butter sandwiches. There's a quiet happiness that radiates off Monty when he talks about Jasper, and it's nice. Not every conversation circles back to being about their relationship, which is also nice. Monty asks Raven if she's going to participate in her science fair. because if they meet up at state, she'll actually give him a run for his money. And when she shakes her head and says, "Not a chance in hell," he tells her she should. What Raven thinks she should do is make an effort to get in touch with him more often, and not just because she's had a shitty week and could use some weed.

Monty makes his exit when someone from his school tells him Jasper's got a bloody nose.

She runs into Bellamy by the stairs. He's leaning against the wall and when she follows his line of vision he's watching Octavia. "A little creepy, don't you think?" she asks.

He looks at her, mouth pressed into a thin line. "Someone needs to watch out for her."

"She's not going to do anything bad. She's not irresponsible."

"She's not exactly, responsible, either," he says. And then he sighs, scrubs at his face. "Sorry. It's just. She came home wasted last weekend. It was scary. And annoying."

"She has to make her own mistakes," Raven says. She doesn't say that some people never learn from them.

Bellamy looks at her, smiles wryly. "I guess so. You want to get something to drink?"

"I'm good. I've already had some and I don't want you to think I'm not responsible."

He rolls his eyes. "Cute."

She's smirking at him, and he huffs and looks away and his face falls. Raven sees his jaw clench and his eyes darken. She's about to make a comment about how Octavia can talk to boys, Jesus, but when she turns her head he's not looking at Octavia at all, he's looking at Finn and a blonde girl Raven has never seen before. She must to go the private school with Jasper and Monty. She's got wavy hair and curves and Finn's hands are on her hips and he's mouthing at her neck.

Which is like.

 _Damn_.

Finn has never been good at subtle, but he's never thrown it in her face before, either. And Raven feels her cheeks heat up with embarrassment. Because people from school are here, and strangers are here, and Bellamy is here. And she's here. She is here and her boyfriend's thumb is under another girl's shirt. The girl looks in her direction once, and Raven can feel Bellamy's hand move, press into the small of her back. He leans down, voice quiet and rough: "Do you want to go over there?"

Raven swallows. "No."

It hurts again, but it's wrong. The hurt is wrong.

"I'll take that drink, though."

Bellamy's hand doesn't leave her back as she heads toward the kitchen. He gets her a cup of beer, filled to the brim, and then looks around. It's less crowded than the living room, but there are still too many people, so Raven lets him lead her out the back door.

It's fucking freezing and there's frost on the ground and her jacket's inside. She pulls the sleeves of her shirt down before cupping her beer with both hands and bringing it to her mouth to take a large gulp. "Well. That sucked."

"You don't have to do that. You don't have to pretend to be okay, Raven. You don't have to make it a joke."

She shivers and it runs through her entire body. The wind is strong and she thinks if she sits out here too long her mouth will turn blue. She leans into him and he wraps an arm around her shoulder, pulls her gently into his side. "Can you take me home?"

He doesn't even hesitate: "Yeah."

She doesn't move for another minute. She takes a sip of beer and then dumps it onto the ground. She exhales and watches her breath freeze.

Bellamy follows her back inside, and while she's getting her coat out of the closet, he talks to Octavia and then meets Raven out front.

He blasts the heat in the car, and she doesn't change the station off of whatever top 40 she's sure Octavia tuned the radio to on the way to the party. It's loud and she likes it, the insidious melodies that are catchy, the way it drowns out her brain's attempts to think, the picture of Finn smiling at the girl in a way Raven remembers him smiling at her. Bellamy's clutching the wheel too tightly and his face is impossible to read when she looks at him. He never drives more than five miles over the speed limit and he comes to a complete stop at every stop sign. The moon's just a sliver and she can hardly see any stars. Raven focuses on the details and feels herself relax.

Bellamy parks in her driveway and cuts the engine. He doesn't say anything for a full song and commercial until: "We can fuck, if it'll make you feel better."

She looks at him. "It won't. It's not about that." She reaches over and grabs his hand where it's curled into a fist on his thigh. She curls his fingers. "Thank you, though."

Raven goes inside alone.

The house is empty.

It surprises her that she doesn't cry.

 

***

 

For Clarke, it starts at the party.

She could pretend it starts before that, when she meets Finn or the first time Finn kisses her or when he ditches school because she has the day off for faculty meetings, but it doesn't. And she doesn't want it to, which is probably a more honest phrasing, she doesn't want it to start before the party.

So, it starts at Jasper and Monty's party. She shows up alone because Wells is out of town and because Monty practically begged at lunch. He'd said it wouldn't be a party without her, and she had raised an eyebrow like she didn't quite believe it.

But she didn't have other plans, she loves Monty and Jasper, and she's good at drinking games. Clarke gets really into them, trash talks her opponents and almost always walks away feeling like a winner, and not just because she almost always walks away buzzed. She's trying to rally some people into setting up a game of quarters -- Miller seemed interested, but she's lost him in the shuffle -- when she spots Finn. He's talking to Jasper, lazy and unaffected smile on his face, and Clarke waves.

Finn waves back, shooting her a half-mocking look. She shrugs and watches him excuse himself before walking over to her. He looks around the room briefly before pressing a quick kiss to her mouth. "You didn't tell me you were coming."

"I didn't know I was coming." Clarke looks around the room, too, mostly because she thinks Sterling would want to play a drinking game with her. "Up for quarters?" she asks, because he's here.

"If you want to."

Clarke smiles and grabs his hand, pulling him along.

She likes him. He's accommodating and frustrating in equal parts. He makes terrible jokes and should cut his hair, but Clarke likes the way he smiles after he delivers a particularly recalcitrant punchline, and she likes how soft his hair is when she tugs on it. So, really, Clarke doesn't think she has much to complain about.

She beats Finn at quarters twice, beats a girl named Monroe who she's never seen before, and Miller bests her once. And then she's feeling a little tipsy, and even though Monty and Jasper's playlist doesn't flow and doesn't consist of much music you can dance to, Clarke wants to dance.

"You dance?" Finn asks.

"Don't sound so surprised." Clarke laces their fingers together and pulls him into the front room -- because the furniture has been pushed against the walls and it's their best bet for space.

She feels self-conscious at first, because no one else is dancing and the music is too low, but then Finn's hands are on her hips and she can feel him smiling against her ear. "You're a good dancer."

"Stop that." She leans her head to give him better access to her neck. His mouth is warm and dry and it feels good. Clarke closes her eyes and sways, stops thinking about how she looks. She thinks that's what she likes best about being with Finn: there's no pressure to be anything. Clarke needs to get good grades, and she needs to get into an Ivy League college, and she needs to attend fundraising dinners with her parents, and she wants to be all those things, do all those things, but, sometimes it's nice not to worry about failing to live up to expectations rooted in other people.

When she opens her eyes, a couple by the stairs is looking at her.

Her vision blurs around the edges so she blinks a few times to clear it, puts her hands on top of Finn's where his fingers are digging into her hips, holds him close and makes him stay.

Clarke has known for a long time that she's not straight, and the girl is probably the most beautiful person she's ever seen, and it makes sense that her boyfriend is probably the second most beautiful person she's ever seen. Clarke watches his hand disappear behind her back, watches as he leans down to whisper something in her ear. The girls nods, and there is something about them that makes Clarke bite her lip. A fierceness, a protectiveness, something hard.

She has never thought about love as being something hard before, but she thinks it is and she thinks it should be. She thinks that would protect it.

She watches them walk away, his palm spread against the small of her back.

Later, Clarke lets Finn eat her out in the backseat of his car, parked a block away from Jasper's house. When she comes she thinks about that boy's hand on that girl's back.

 

 

 

Clarke eyes the set of oil pastels. She doesn't need them, and they're ridiculously expensive, but she wants them. It's the beginning of spring semester and there's something eerily calm about it. Because she has all her syllabi and there's work to do, always is, but it won't pile on until around midterms, and then it'll be hell until finals. But right now, Clarke feels like she has time, so much time, and she doesn't know what to do with it.

She takes the set off the shelf, runs her fingers over the colors, imagines painting her mother's flower garden, the sunset from her bedroom window, the forest of evergreens at the arboretum. She painted Wells once, when they were dating, because she wanted to try her hand at people and because he was more than willing to model for her. It hadn't come out quite right, and Clarke couldn't put her finger on why. Something about the eyes, maybe. Wells had kisses the top of her head and told her he loved it. It's still hanging up in his room.

She puts the pastels back and leaves the store with nothing.

It's snowing, but it's not sticking. The ground is wet and the wind feels sharp against Clarke's skin. She thinks she would have liked to paint downtown with those pastels, paint the way it looks now: dark clouds, dim, like the setting of a Dickens novel. She might have been able to convince her English teacher to let her use it for a project.

She readjusts her purse so the strap sits solidly on her shoulder and turns the corner. The girl from the party is there, looking into the local coffee shop. She's wearing a leather jacket that's too big on her, drops down so Clarke can't see her hands. Her cheeks are flushed. Clarke thinks she's even prettier than she remembers. She wants to go up to her and say hello. She wants to introduce herself and ask the girl if she'd want to get a cup of coffee.

She doesn't plan on actually doing any of that because the girl probably doesn't remember her, probably wasn't even looking at her at the party, and is intimidatingly pretty. She's intimidating, full stop, a standoffish quality about her posture and the set of her jaw.

Clarke looks straight ahead and keeps walking.

It's ridiculous and stupid and illogical how nervous she feels when she passes by the girl, her heart hammering in her chest. Clarke should probably rethink just how Not Straight she is. And then she hears someone say, "Hey, blondie."

Clarke stops and turns around slowly, unsure if she's being spoken to or not.

The girl looks at her, eyes narrowed and mouth set tight. Clarke swallows. "Me?"

"Yeah." The girl doesn't make any move toward her, so Clarke takes a couple of steps back the way she came.

"Hi, I'm Clarke. I saw you at Jasper and Monty's party a few weeks ago?"

The girl blinks. "You know Finn Collins?"

"Oh, yeah." Clarke shakes her head. She feels warm with the way the girl's eyes bore into her. "He's kind of my boyfriend."

The girl inhales sharply and her face falls before she sets it again. She reaches under the coat and pulls her phone out. She holds the screen up. It's a picture of the girl and Finn. He's got his arm slung over her shoulders and is pressing a kiss to the girl's temple. She's smiling and squinting, like maybe she's looking into the sun.

Clarke doesn't understand what, exactly, she's looking at. "I don't . . ."

"He's my boyfriend," the girl says, words clipped like she can't get them out fast enough. "Over a year, now."

Clarke stares at her, looks at the girl's phone again, and then scrubs at her face. "Oh my god. He never. He never said. Oh god." The girl puts her phone away and Clarke steps closer to her, wants to put her hand on her shoulder and apologize.

"Right. Well. You've been sleeping with my boyfriend, so."

"I'll stop."

The girl smiles wearily. "Thanks. Just, don't tell him you talked to me."

"Why not? Don't you want him to know that you, you know, _know_?"

"It's complicated," she says.

The door to the coffee shop jingles, and the boy from the party walks out, handing the girl a cup. "Roma wouldn't have asked, Raven. It wouldn't have been a big deal."

The girl, Raven, rolls her eyes and gestures towards Clarke. "Bellamy, meet Clarke."

Bellamy looks at her, starts to smile and then seems to remember something. "Hi."

"It's fine," Raven says. She takes a sip of her coffee. The jacket is bunched by her elbows now, her hands wrapped around the cup. She's not wearing gloves. "She didn't know. It's fine."

Bellamy's looking at Raven like he doesn't really believe her, but when she raises an eyebrow he seems to settle. He holds out his hand for Clarke to shake. "Nice to meet you, Princess." There's some disdain there, which Clarke doesn't think is fair. She wanted to apologize to Raven, but she doesn't think Bellamy has anything to do with this, and she thinks if anyone actually owes anyone an apology, the person who should be saying they're sorry is Finn.

Clarke shakes his hand. "I promise I didn't know."

Inexplicably, she feels like she's going to cry. It must show on her face, because Bellamy softens at that. "I'm sorry," he says.

She nods and then turns toward Raven. "Here." Clarke reaches into her purse, fumbles for a pen and an old receipt. She scribbles out her number and hands it over. "You can call me if you want. We can talk."

Raven takes it, runs it through her fingers. "And you won't say anything to Finn? About talking to me?"

"I promise." She presses her mouth together and is struck by how much of a unit Raven and Bellamy seem to be. "Well, it was nice to meet you both."

Clarke turns around and cringes. Because what a stupid thing to say: Nice to meet you both, my boyfriend's girlfriend and her Bellamy.

Clarke hates her life.

She doubles back the long way and buys the pastels.

 

 

 

She ignores Finn for two days before texting that they need to talk. Clarke agrees to meet him at the diner he always liked to take her to. She orders a cup of coffee and watches out the window. Her stomach churns and she sits very still. She thinks about how she's never been to Finn's house. It'd never really occurred to her before. She met him when he was with Jasper and Monty, and he'd pick her up and take her here, or the park, or the art gallery she likes so much but he always acted bored by. But she's never been to his house, and somehow, that seems to be the most damning thing.

She liked him a lot, too.

She was getting over the disaster she made of her relationship with her best friend, and she jumped at Finn and his cocky smile.

Clarke realizes she couldn't have known he had -- has -- a girlfriend, but she thinks she could have done her research. She should have asked Monty and Jasper about him, she should have found him on Facebook, and she shouldn't have let the way he made her feel cloud her judgement. There must have been signs. She has to believe there must have been signs.

She spots his car pulling into the lot and looks down. Her coffee has gone cold.

She's still looking at her coffee when he slides into the booth across from her. "Hey, everything okay?" He reaches across the table, and when his fingers brush against her wrist, Clarke pulls back and folds her hands in her lap. "Clarke?"

She takes a deep breath and looks at him: the worry in his eyes, the slump of his shoulders, the downward tilt of his mouth. "You have a girlfriend."

Finn sits up straight and his eyes widen. "Clarke I--" He runs a hand through his hair. "How did you find out?"

"How did I find out?" She scoffs. "That's all you have to say?"

"Look, she's - she's great. I've known her my entire life, but I don't. She's not--"

"Finn." She cuts him off. "I don't want your excuses. Please leave."

"Clarke, I'm really sorry." He's got his mouth open like he's searching for something to say to make what he did okay, to make it better.

"Okay. Please _leave_."

She watches him get out of the booth, watches him look back when he gets to the door, and watches him walk to his car and drive away. She keeps watching and it sucks. It sucks that she liked him, and it sucks that he made her culpable for someone else's pain.

She's about to pay for her coffee and leave when the bell above the door chimes and Bellamy walks in. He waves to a woman behind the counter who has his eyes. Clarke watches them hug, and she watches him reach into his back pocket, pull out his wallet and hand the woman -- his mother, probably -- some cash. He kisses her on the cheek, and when he turns and spots her, Clarke lifts her hand in halfhearted greeting.

He walks over to her and slides into the spot Finn had occupied. "What a coincidence," Clarke says. "Bellamy, right?"

"Princess."

"It's Clarke."

"I know." His mouth quirks up. "Look. I know I was rude to you the other day. It's just Raven, she's." He licks at his mouth and shakes his head. "She's been hurt a lot. She believes you, you know? That you didn't know about her."

"I didn't." Clarke swallows. She wants him to believe her, too.

He nods like he does.

He sits with her, asks about school and her family and avoids asking how she met Finn. Before he leaves he sends her a text message so she can save his number in her phone. It's not until he adjusts the collar of his leather jacket that she realizes Raven was wearing the same one two days ago.

Clarke's not stupid.

She knows what that means.

 

 

 

When she gets out of her last class, Clarke drives down the road to the public school because Bellamy asked her to. She wants to know why, but he refuses to tell her and is persistently annoying about it. She doesn't have student government or astronomy club, so she eventually agrees. The parking lot confuses her, and she's not exactly sure where she's supposed to be going, so she picks a space on the end of a row by the exit. There aren't a lot of cars around anyway, and Clarke remembers that the public schools let out first.

She sends Bellamy an _I'm here._ text and waits. She leans her forehead against the steering wheel and closes her eyes.

She thinks about getting up and wandering around, but there's the dull pounding of an oncoming headache in her temples, and she doesn't want to get lost. She starts when someone knocks on her window and looks up to see Bellamy peering in. Raven's with him, arms crossed over her chest. Clarke takes the key out of the ignition and opens the door. "Hi."

"You found it." Bellamy shuts the car door behind her.

Clarke rolls her eyes. "I drive by it every day."

"I didn't know you were coming," Raven says. "We don't really do much."

"He wouldn't tell me why I was supposed to show up, anyway. Is something happening?" She is so confused, but Raven and Bellamy look so good standing next to each other, Raven's hip popped out and Bellamy's hands hanging by his sides, so she'll call it a draw.

"Literally nothing. He's an idiot." Raven turns and heads toward a door with a peeling eight sticker over it. 

"Is it okay that I'm here?" Clarke asks. She feels like she's encroaching on something private, that she has already accidentally encroached on something that is Raven's, and even though she doesn't really know the girl, Clarke respects her enough to want to avoid that.

"Fine." Bellamy's face twists like he thinks, maybe, he made a horrible mistake.

Door eight has been propped open with a pencil, and when Raven just keeps walking, Bellamy picks it up. "I can leave," Clarke offers.

"Don't."

Raven pushes open another door. "Very monosyllabic today, Blake. You're making her feel all warm and fuzzy inside." Raven looks at Clarke over her shoulder. "And you don't have to leave."

"I understand if you don't want to be friends." Clarke clears her throat.

Raven shrugs. "Never said that."

They don't talk about Finn. If they did, Clarke wouldn't know what to say. Possibly: I'm sorry that he cheated on you, or, Isn't it a little hypocritical if you're cheating on him, too? or, I didn't even like him all that much. She doesn't think any of those things would be helpful, and she thinks the last option is only half true

Raven's working on a car, and Clarke sits down next to Bellamy, back against the wall. He opens a history textbook.

"You take autoshop?" Clarke asks. There is no autoshop at Go-Sci.

"Yeah. Mr. Wick sometimes gives me cars to work on after school. Get paid and everything." Raven leans against the front of the car and rolls her sleeves up.

"That's cool. You must be really good."

"The best," Raven says, flippant, as though it doesn't matter.

"Humble, too." Bellamy looks up, smirking.

"You can only be humble if you have something to be humble about. But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

Bellamy presses his mouth together and turns to look at Clarke. "See what I have to deal with?"

"Well. I don't think you hate it," Clarke says slowly, as thought she doesn't have a right to comment, as though saying it aloud might embarrass them both.

Raven raises an eyebrow. "I like you."

Clarke smiles and tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. "Thanks."

Silence settles over them, and Clarke eventually goes to her car to grab her bookbag, Bellamy handing her a pen to prop the door open with: "They lock after three. If you don't use it you have to walk around to the front of the building." She does her reading, shoulder-to-shoulder with Bellamy, the sounds of Raven fixing the car providing a soundtrack much nicer than Clarke would have expected.

 

 

 

Clarke flips the page of her textbook, cheek resting against her palm. It's dark out and the diner's lights are bright and florescent. Her eyes hurt, but she's awake. She has a test on the Crimean War tomorrow. Bellamy sits across from her, reading _The Historian_ and making notes in a small notepad next to him. She would ask if it's for school, but she knows it's not. He put away his math homework almost an hour ago, and he probably did everything else after school with Raven.

It's Wednesday, so she had astronomy club after school.

It's Wednesday, so she meets Bellamy at the diner after dinner, orders a cherry danish and a cup of coffee; tonight it's caffeinated because she needs it.

Clarke taps her pen against the table a few times and worries her bottom lip between her teeth. Bellamy looks up, looks pointedly at the pen and then at Clarke. "Sorry," she says.

"You want me to quiz you?" he asks.

"On the Crimean War?" Clarke cocks an eyebrow.

Bellamy shrugs. "It's not my specialty, and I don't remember everything, but if I flipped through the textbook I'm sure I could do it."

She snorts. "I'm sure you could. But I need a break." Clarke pushes the textbook across the table so her elbows straighten. She rests her cheek against the almost-rubbery surface of the tabletop and sighs. She feels Bellamy grab the textbook and turn it around, and she hears him flip through the pages. "Don't lose my spot. Please."

He chuckles under his breath. She half-expects him to ask some vague question about Russian expansionism, but he seems to take pity on her and goes quiet.

Clarke closes her eyes and counts to ten very slowly. When she lifts her head, Bellamy's skimming a page, but he's got a finger marking her spot.

Clarke came here one Wednesday night because her mother was entertaining guests. She was annoyed because she hadn't been told until she got home, she had a science test to study for, and she wanted coffee. She could have gone to the coffee shop downtown. It would have been closer. But she'd missed this place. She'd missed it despite the fact that it had been intertwined with Finn in her brain. Clarke thinks maybe she had missed Finn, but she didn't want to, and she doesn't want to, so she pushes that thought away.

She'd stayed until close and ran into Bellamy, who was picking his mother up from her shift.

Now he comes earlier, and Clarke likes his company. Clarke likes the way the cut of his cheekbones look under the harsh lights, and she likes how he's scrubbing away the association this place has with Finn and replacing it with something else, something better.

"Do you only pick up you mom on Wednesdays?" Clarke asks. She thinks she could swing by on Monday nights, too. She thinks that'd be nice, because she has student government and doesn't get to the high school to see him and Raven.

"And Saturdays. The buses don't run late enough for her to catch them."

Clarke nods and presses her mouth together. "That's nice of you."

"Not really." He shrugs. "She works two jobs for O and me. She does her best. If that means I miss a few hours of sleep, what's it matter?"

When Bellamy talks about his mom, there's reverence in his voice. It reminds Clarke of the way he talks about Octavia, expect with less fond annoyance. It's soft and tender and makes something inside Clarke squeeze until it almost hurts.

"Still. You don't feel any resentment?"

He blinks. "Why would I?"

Clarke shakes her head. "I don't know." She would say: I sometimes resent it when I'm trying to watch an old football game with my dad and my mom makes me pause it to help dry the dishes. I sometimes resent it when I have to put on a nice dress and spend an evening with my mom's business associates talking about medicine and pharmaceuticals and health insurance. I sometimes resent that I couldn't go to New York with Wells last summer because we had to visit my dad's great aunt in Florida.

She would say that, but she knows those things are awful, and she knows she's never had to worry about picking her parents up from working a second job just to put food on the table. She thinks it puts some things in perspective, and she thinks it's awful for her to take his life and turn it into a lesson about her _perspective_.

"Okay," she starts. "Ask me a question."

She taps on the edge of her book and he flips back to the page his thumb marks. "How did Russia's desire to expand and the decline of the Ottoman Empire impact the war?"

Clarke smiles around a yawn before answering.

 

 

 

Clarke's sitting at a red light, halfway home, when her phone rings.

She looks at it, expecting a call from her dad because he found a pun on the internet, or Wells asking if she wants to go over the economics homework -- she only took econ as her elective this semester because he wanted her to. But the caller ID says Raven. Which is odd. Raven never calls her. She sends texts sometimes, and she's friendly, if a little closed off. In the diner with Bellamy, Clarke can ask him a question and he'll answer: Octavia got the chicken pox when she was eight, and Bellamy helped rub at the red spots on her ankles because if he didn't, she'd scratch them. The only coloring book he had growing up was about Julius Caesar. He dated a girl named Roma for three months, but it never amounted to anything and they're still friends. Clarke is afraid to ask Raven things, but she wants to know them, all of them. She wants to know what movie makes her cry, and how she started working on cars, and why her shoulders tighten for a moment whenever Bellamy mentions his mom, and why they relax when he brushes a hand over her upper back.

Clarke turns into the next parking lot, but her phone has stopped ringing.

She takes a deep breath and calls Raven back. "Hi."

"Hi. Um." Raven pauses and Clarke swallows. "I know this is a lot to ask, and you don't have to if you don't want to."

"What?"

"Well, Bellamy's with Octavia at a dance competition. And I forgot? I didn't think about it, and there's this car I had to finish because the owner's picking it up tomorrow. And Finn isn't answering his phone. I sent him two texts and called and left a voicemail and like--" She pauses. "Nevermind. It only takes 15 minutes to walk to the bus stop. I probably have enough change."

"No!" Clarke says, loud and a little desperate. "No. It's okay. I'll pick you up."

Raven sighs. "You really don't have to. I fucked up. I should've told Finn I'd need a ride."

"Raven?"

"Yeah?"

"You're going to stay put and I'm going to pick you up. Got it?"

She sighs again, but Clarke thinks she sounds relieved. "Okay. Thank you."

The sun starts to set as Clarke shifts gears and leaves the bank's parking lot. There's traffic, and even though the days are finally starting to get longer, the sun sets too quickly. It's dark when she gets to the school, and Clarke stands by door eight expecting to find a pen stuck there, the way it normally is on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.There is no pen, and Clarke doesn't know why that hurts. The lights at the far end of the hallway are off, and everything is dim. She squints to see better through the glass, as though she expects to find Raven sitting against a locker halfway down.

Clarke sends her a text message, and a few minutes later Raven's pushing open the door from the inside.

"I'm sorry" is the first thing she says.

"Don't be." Clarke waves her hand around. "I wanted to."

Raven narrows her eyes like she's looking for the lie, and then she just keeps walking. "Thanks."

"In middle school, I used to miss the bus all the time. I'd always stay late talking to a teacher about something. Or organizing my locker because I'd make a mess of it between classes, and then I'd call my dad to pick me up. He'd usually just take me out for ice cream and drop me off at home. I think he liked having an excuse to leave work, and I know I liked getting ice cream. I probably missed the bus on purpose a few times."

"Your dad sounds great," Raven says. Her face looks different in the dark and her smile softens. 

"He is." Clarke unlocks her car and they both climb in.

When the car turns on cold air blasts through the vents, and Clarke adjusts it down while everything heats up. She pulls out of the parking lot, letting Raven direct her. The classical music mix Wells put together and gave her for her birthday plays quietly in the background, easy enough to ignore while simultaneously making Clarke feel at ease. Raven's backpack sits by her feet, and Clarke's hands sit at 10 and 2 on the wheel. The streetlamps in the neighborhood cast circular patches of light onto the asphalt, and Clarke thinks it feels a bit surreal and, also, a bit normal. Clarke thinks she would like to drive Raven home every day until she doesn't need directions to get to her house, until it only feels normal.

"It's that one," Raven says. "Without the porch lights."

In the dark it's hard to see details, but Clarke can just make out the pale yellow siding and the small porch held up by two plain, wooden pillars. Clarke pulls into the empty driveway and puts her car in park.

"You can come in," Raven offers.

Clarke looks at her, unconvinced that Raven actually means it. She already has a hand on the door, and she's looking straight ahead. Clarke turns the car off anyway. "Sure."

She can't help but wonder if Finn lives in this neighborhood. And Clarke hates that. She doesn't think about him much anymore, and she never missed him all that much to begin with, not intensely and not in the same aching, sad way she still misses Wells sometimes. She wishes she never missed Finn at all, and she wishes she could will her brain to stop thinking about him. Clarke thinks she's happier now, which should be enough to push his memory away, but sometimes he still sneaks through, unwanted and uninvited.

She follows Raven to the porch, watches her rummage through her backpack's side pocket, take out her house key and unlock the front door. Raven flips on a switch and toes off her shoes, so Clarke follows suit. She allows herself to think about how Finn has undoubtedly stood here, been here, kissed Raven here. Then she unzips her coat and decides to move on. "Thanks."

"For what?" Raven shrugs off her jacket and throws it over the railing by the stairs.

"I'm being polite."

Raven cracks a smile. "You want something to drink? I think we have orange juice in the fridge."

"Water's good." Clarke tugs on her coat, fingering the zipper just below the base of her throat.

She pulls out a chair at Raven's kitchen table, watches Raven's hands as she breaks ice out of a tray and drops it into two glasses before filling them with water from the tap.

"I can't believe I didn't think about it, you know? Bellamy talked about the dance competition more than Octavia. He was so excited for her. They won't win. They're not that good. But he bought her flowers, cheap ones from the grocery store? He does that. I've never been to a competition, but Octavia says he does it every time. I should've thought about it. Finn would've picked me up, if I'd told him. But I forgot." Raven sits down next to Clarke, placing one of the glasses of water in front of her before gulping down half her own.

"Stop apologizing." Clarke smiles.

"I wasn't. I was just . . . thinking."

"Okay." Clarke takes a sip of water, and when she sets the glass back down on the table, she can see condensation around the marks her fingertips left. The pause in the conversation is short, but weighs heavy, so Clarke asks, "You like me, right?"

"What?" Raven blinks and then her eyes go wide. "Yeah. We're friends."

"Good." Clarke nods. "So, stop acting like you're a burden."

Raven's shoulders relax and her mouth goes thin. "You know, I aced the biology test I took yesterday."

Clarke grins. "Of course you did."

"I know." Raven shrugs. "97 percent."

"You're a genius."

"I kind of am." Raven's mouth quirks up and Clarke feels her own grin widen.

When Raven scrunches her nose and scratches at it, Clarke feels something warm seep into her chest. Raven's smile is bright and uninhibited the way it gets sometimes, like when Bellamy knocked over a cart of tools last week, or when she figured out why an engine kept short-circuiting. The way Raven becomes the manifestation of joy bowls Clarke over. She thinks she could fall in love with it.

The thought catches in her chest, and the one that follows is: "Were you ever going to call me?" She wants a concrete answer, even though she thinks she already knows.

"What?" Raven asks.

"The first time I met you. I gave you my number if you wanted to talk. Were you going to call me?"

Raven's face softens and saddens. One thing Clarke has learned about her is that what she feels is usually written on her face. "No. I wasn't."

"I understand." Clarke almost reaches out to grab Raven's hand, but stops herself.

"I'm glad it didn't matter." Raven looks at her, eyes downcast. She looks like she's asking for something, but Clarke doesn't know what. "I'm glad we're friends."

Clarke doesn't smile again, but she does lay her hand over Raven's where it's resting against the edge of the table. "Me too."

If Clarke is being honest, she'll replace the previous "it" with "her:" she thinks she could fall in love with her.

 

 

 

 

The kitchen smells like pot roast and her dad's sauteing vegetables by the stove. He has a glass of red wine on the counter, and her mom has one in front of her at the kitchen table where she's putting out silverware.

"Hi, honey," her dad says.

"Hey." Clarke opens the cabinet next to the sink and pulls out three glasses. "Smells good."

"Should be ready in five minutes."

"Did astronomy club run long?" Her mom wraps an arm around her shoulder and presses a kiss to her temple. She smells like garlic and soap.

"No," Clarke says.

She could have said yes, because it has run long before. They've waited until it's gotten dark enough to go out, look at the stars, and map their positions in the sky. They've gotten caught up in discussing solar cycles. Clarke is not used to lying to her parents, but right after she tells the truth, she wishes maybe she was.

"What kept you?" her mom asks. Clarke hears the click of her dad turning off the stove and looks at him. His eyebrows furrowed and his mouth playful.

"Oh, well." Clarke shrugs. "Raven needed a ride home."

"Raven," her dad repeats. He blinks at her before turning back to the stove and pouring the vegetables into a ceramic bowl. Her mom's face is set, mouth pressed into a straight line. The small wrinkles around her eyes are visible in a way that means she's worried about something.

Two years ago, Clarke sat at dinner with her parents and told them she is interested in girls the same way she is interested in boys. Her mom had smiled small and her father had touched her hand. They told her they loved her no matter what before going back to their lemon chicken. They haven't brought it up since, and Clarke has only gone on a few dates with boys, and then there was Wells, and then there was Finn, and now she can see that her parents are, finally, starting to honestly consider the idea that Clarke likes girls. They love her, and they're supportive, but she thinks maybe at some point in the last two years they'd stopped considering it.

"Yeah." Clarke nods and takes her spot at the table.

Her mom takes her place at the head and fingers her glass of wine before taking a sip. "You've been spending a lot of time with Raven and Bellamy lately."

"Yeah."

"Maybe you should invite them over."

"Okay," Clarke says. Her dad's pulling the roast out of the oven, and her mom nods, stands back up and grabs the bowl of vegetables. She has a nervous way about her as she scoops carrots onto Clarke's plate. "I'll ask them."

"It's not that we don't trust you," her mom starts. "It's that we want to know the people you're associating with. Finn was nice."

Clarke frowns. "Mom."

"Sorry." She sits back down, holding her hands up in surrender.

Her dad sets the pot roast in the middle of the table and starts carving. "Wells misses you, you know. We haven't seen him in a while."

"I know." Clarke straightens the fork next to her plate. "I miss him, too. But it's complicated."

"All right. We'll stop the interrogation now." Her dad laughs, and her mom smiles in a way that doesn't change the worry lines around her eyes.

 

 

 

Clarke blinks into the sun. The weather has been warm and she's traded her winter coat for a spring jacket. Spring isn't in full bloom yet, but it's close. Her nose will be runny in a few weeks, but right now she appreciates it. It had started to feel like the cold had gotten into the marrow of the earth and wasn't ever going to let up.

The usual pen is stuck in door eight, and Clarke picks it up, rolls it between her fingers. It's a black pen with no cap, and Clarke had accidentally stuck it into her purse once and forgotten to give it back. She'd kept it over the weekend and only noticed it when she was getting lunch with her mom, rummaging through her bag to find her wallet.

When Clarke peaks into autoshop, she gasps. Audibly. Which is ridiculous for a number of reasons. She's alone in the public high school, for one, so the dramatics of it are unwarranted. And because she's known for a long time that Raven and Bellamy are fucking, so it shouldn't be something that surprises her. Clarke blinks, and then she turns, slides down the wall next to the door and presses her mouth together. Her eyes feel wide and they hurt, so she closes them and pushes against the lids with her fingertips.

Bellamy's shirt had been off, and Raven's had been bunched up. Bellamy's hands were spread against Raven's back, and Raven's hair was down. Raven's hair is long, and Clarke hadn't thought about that before. She swallows and licks at her mouth and she wants--

She wants -- what? Clarke exhales. She knows what.

She's tried, hard, not to think about it since she met Bellamy and Raven on the sidewalk. She's tried not to think about it since the night of the party when she got off to the thought of the two of them. But she feels like she's run into a wall, and she thinks maybe she won't be able to stop thinking about it. Maybe tonight she'll go home and she'll get off to Raven's hair falling down her back and the flex of Bellamy's arms and the way the two of them were pressed against each other.

Clarke chews on her bottom lip and takes out her phone. She mindlessly scrolls through her apps. And when Raven opens the door and sticks her head out -- her hair back up -- she asks, "What're you doing out here? Bellamy was starting to panic."

"Was not!" he calls.

"Oh." Clarke clicks on the last message Wells sent her. "Got a call I needed to take.

She doesn't say anything all afternoon, but on the way out of the building she can't help herself. Raven's a few paces ahead, walking with purpose. Clarke leans close to Bellamy: "Your shirt's inside out."

He looks down. "Oh."

Raven must have ridiculously good hearing, because she laughs.

 

 

 

Raven’s lying on her stomach, notebook open in front of her. Her writing is blocky and small and neater than Clarke would have expected. She flips to the next page, eyes darting from left to right. Her ponytail falls over her shoulder and the ends of her hair trail against the floor. Clarke resists the urge she has to move it; the floor is dusty and dirty.

“My parents want to meet you,” Clarke says. Her science textbook is open in her lap and she wedges the edge of the cover between her finger and the nail. She doesn’t look away when Raven looks up, eyebrow raised. “I think they’re worried you’re a bad influence.”

“Me?” Raven smirks. “Why?”

“Because you got grease on my jacket the other day.” Clarke shrugs. The real answer probably falls somewhere along a spectrum between the grease and the public education.

“That was your fault.”

Clarke would protest, but Raven’s right. Raven had only rolled herself under a car and asked for a wrench. Clarke’s the one who’d gotten on her knees to hand it over. As it turns out, kneeling down on a small puddle of grease was not her best move. The wetness soaked into her jeans, and she’d run her fingers over the stain, groaning before accidentally wiping her hands on her brand new designer jacket. Bellamy laughed, and Raven escorted her to the bathroom down the hall. They didn’t have much luck getting the splotch out, and her mother had sighed about having to take the jacket to the cleaners.

“I think it’s because I’ve been different lately,” Clarke says. "Not the stain, the band influence thing." She runs her finger along the edge of her book and then closes it. She stretches her legs out in front of her.

“How?” Raven asks, her eyes focused and serious.

“I guess I want independence in a different way? Like, I love my parents, but they’re so.” She moves her hand, trying to think of the words. Bellamy would have them, she thinks. “Set in their ways. I’m going to be student council president next year, and I’m going to go to an Ivy League university, and then I’m going to go to medical school and it’s just." Clarke exhales. “I want those things, too. But it’s a lot of pressure. And I want . . . other things.”

Raven nods before starting to push herself off the ground with her elbows. When she sits up and looks at Clarke, Clarke feels warm and comfortable despite how heavy and dense the air is, like the particles have shifted closer together and there are more of them.

“I--” Clarke stops and shakes her head. She closes her textbook and places it carefully in her backpack, getting onto her knees and shuffling over to Raven because, apparently, she didn’t learn from the track marks on her jacket. “I think I was sad before.”

There’s tension in Raven’s neck. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Clarke sort of smiles and presses the tips of her fingers against the hole in the knee of Raven’s jeans. Her skin is cool. “I think you helped.”

“Good.” Raven’s the one who breaks eye contact, looking down at her notes, still laying open on the floor of the garage.

“Hey,” Clarke whispers. Raven looks at her. “Thank you.”

Clarke leans in and pauses, hesitates. Raven’s eyelashes are long and her mouth is parted. Clarke wants to ask if it’s okay, if she can. She presses her lips to the corner of Raven’s mouth.

When she pulls back she watches Raven’s eyes flutter open. Clarke can see the sarcastic comment forming, her mouth tilting: "nice aim" or, "that all you got?" or, "thanks, Grandma." Raven doesn’t say it though. She doesn’t say anything.

She leans in, doesn’t hesitate and kisses Clarke square on the mouth. It’s gentle, but in a different way. Clarke can feel it all over and she brings a hand up to touch Raven’s face, brush her fingers against Raven’s skin. Raven tastes like chapstick, her lips are soft, and when she opens up, Clarke’s the one who makes a sound, quiet in the back of her throat.

She’s embarrassed until Raven laughs against her mouth, moving her hand to thread through Clarke’s hair and pull her closer.

“Oh, your parents are going to love me,” she mumbles.

Clarke smiles and rests her forehead against Raven’s. “They better.”

 

 

 

Because her parents won't stop saying Bellamy and Raven's names in that weird tone of theirs, half-Shakespearean and half like they think Clarke made them up, she actually does invite them to dinner.

She has no idea why she let her parents wear her down like that, because now they're sitting at the dining room table, which they only ever use when her grandparents are in town, her parents at the ends, Bellamy and Raven on one side and Clarke on the other, like this is some court of parental opinion. Her mother probably owns a gavel.

Her dad made lasagna and garlic bread, and her parents aren't having their usual glass of wine. Clarke takes this as a bad omen.

Bellamy is being polite, though. He shook her parents' hands in the foyer and complimented her dad on the food. Raven is being quiet, a small, strained smile on her face whenever Clarke's dad asks her a question.

Her mom hasn't said anything at all. Which is really the terrifying part. Because her dad is friendly and makes terrible jokes to lighten the mood, and when he asks things that could sound -- would sound, out of her mom's mouth -- judgmental and prying, like what Raven plans to do after she graduates (from college, because her parents are weirdos who assume college is for everyone and that everyone should already have a plan for after), he just sounds genuinely and innocently interested.

But then her dad makes eye contact with her mom, nods and turns to Bellamy. "You're a good-looking young man."

"Dad," Clarke groans.

"No, he is. Don't you think so?" He turns to her, eyebrows raised and mouth twitching. Clarke can feel her nostrils flare and her face redden. "So," he says, shifting his attention back to Bellamy: "You must have a lot of girls chasing after you." His gaze flickers to Raven, and Raven decidedly does not look away. "A girlfriend? Or boyfriend."

Bellamy swallows and the grip on his fork loosens enough that it clanks against his plate, but not enough that he actually drops it.

Clarke wants to get up, wrap her hands around Bellamy and Raven's wrists and drag them as far away from here as possible. Her parents are fishing for information she hasn't volunteered, and she doesn't think Bellamy and Raven will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, thank god, but she doesn't know what to say if they ask Raven next and Raven offers up Finn. Just thinking about the discussion that would open up gives Clarke a headache. She should have prepared them for this, but she was too busy helping plan the school blood drive, thinking about kissing Bellamy, and actually kissing Raven whenever the opportunity presented itself.

She should've made them notecards.

"No," Bellamy says, having regained his composure. "Focused on my schoolwork."

Clarke can't prove it, but she's pretty sure he brushes his foot against Raven's. It makes her throat feel dry and she gulps down some water while her dad asks Raven about her own romantic prospects.

"I'm more a hit-it and quit-it kind of girl," Raven says, flat. 

Clarke chokes on her water, sputtering some of it back into her glass. She watches her parents' eyes widen. They have a silent conversation before her mother says: "It's a joke."

"You're sharp," her dad answers, picking up his slice of garlic bread and pointing it at Raven. "You've got quite the mouth on you."

Raven shrugs. "Big mouth." She takes a bite of lasagna. "This is really great, Mr. Griffin."

Her mom starts speaking after that, and Clarke rolls a crick out of her neck.

She takes Bellamy and Raven up to her room when they're done eating, all three shooed away from helping with the dishes, her mom reminding her to keep the door open.

"That wasn't so bad," Clarke says, shifting her weight as she stands by her door.

"I think they liked me." Raven smiles, grabbing a pillow by Clarke's headboard, sitting down and placing it in her lap.

Bellamy takes her cue and sits next to her from the other side of the bed. "They definitely liked me better."

"No way. You were obviously trying to too hard and in total parental mode. Her dad thinks I'm hilarious."

"And her mom is never going to let you in her house again."

"Oh, no. She likes me." Bellamy raises an eyebrow. "She thinks I'm a genius, offered to introduce me to this friend of hers who does admissions at the local college and everything."

"What?" Clarke and Bellamy say simultaneously.

Raven smiles so wide she looks like someone stuck a banana in her mouth. Clarke wants to kiss her. Bellamy looks like he wants to argue the point, but also like he wants to kiss her.

Having them both in her room is nice. It takes Clarke a second to relax because she's trying to dissect every comment her parents made, the order of her dad's questions, what it meant when her mom asked her dad to grab a bottle of wine while she filled the kitchen sink with dish detergent. Clarke paces back and forth until Bellamy and Raven both tell her to chill (Raven: "You're going to rub a hole in your floor." Bellamy: "Relax, Princess."). Clarke sits on the edge of her bed, watching the way Bellamy and Raven's hands trace over the sheets, knuckles brushing occasionally until they pull back, slower and slower each time, magnetic; and later, when they leave, when Bellamy drives Raven home, Clarke knows they are going to crash into each other, mouths and teeth, and it makes something pulse underneath her skin.

Her parents walk by the hallway every ten to fifteen minutes. Her dad needs to look up a word in their Oxford English dictionary, her mom forgot her reading glasses in the study, and they both really need to check the linen closet. It's funny, honestly. There are three of them. Do they expect to find them doing drugs? Having an orgy? Is three people even considered an orgy? Clarke needs to stop this train of thought before. Things. Maybe her parents can read her mind, actually.

"Who's this? Wells?" Bellamy asks, looking at the picture framed on Clarke's nightstand. She and Wells are at the lake, standing on the edge of the dock. The water is pretty and Clarke has her scarf wrapped around her neck because the picture was taken in fall, verging on winter. They're young, and Clarke can see it in their faces. She wonders if Bellamy can, if she looks as different as she feels now. Wells is looking at Clarke, and you can just make out the start of the smile on his face, and Clarke is looking at her boots, trying to tuck some hair behind her ear. Wells's dad took the picture. It reminds Clarke of a movie.

She told Wells that once. He remembered, framed the picture and gave it to her for their one month anniversary. There's a message on the back she has memorized but pretends she doesn't. She can't bring herself to reread it.

Sometimes, she's a coward.

"Yeah. That's Wells."

"You two are still friends, right?" Raven's looking at her curiously, eyes soft.

"I don't know." Clarke wrings her hands. "I think so. In theory."

"In theory," Bellamy repeats. His face does the thing where it softens but he tries to hide it. He angles his body toward her, shoulders squared but relaxed. Clarke imagines that if she started crying, his hand would be on hers. She likes to imagine that, not the crying part, obviously, but his hand on hers. She thinks it would be warm.

"We've been best friends since . . . forever. I can't remember a time when he wasn't living next door. He's this constant. And then, I don't know, some time around the end of middle school something changed.

"I could tell. I knew he liked me." Clarke closes her eyes, but she can still feel Raven and Bellamy looking at her. "At first, I just wished it away. I thought he would get over it, you know?"

She pauses, opens her eyes and looks at the sheets, smooths out a crease with the heel of her hand. It's still there when she puts her hand back in her lap. She's quiet long enough that Raven slides down the headboard and touches Clarke's knee with her toe -- quickly and softly -- and Clarke can't tell if it was on purpose.

"But it didn't," Bellamy supplies.

There's finality in the way he says it. He gives her an easy out. Clarke knows she could huff out an agreement before changing the subject, and they'd go along with it like nothing happened at all. She's grateful.

She thinks she needs to stop changing the subject.

"No, it didn't. And then it was like. He's my best friend." Clarke looks up, finds making eye-contact with both of them actually makes it easier. She feels stronger. She's never said these things aloud before, only to herself when she's trying to fall asleep. Clarke thinks she's needed to say it for a long time, that the words have been lodged her in throat and she's been choking on them. She didn't have anyone to say them to before, didn't have anyone she trusted to keep them.

"He's my best friend, and I love him. He's nice. Sweet." Clarke almost smiles. "He's the best person I know, and I thought it would come, you know? I would fall in love with him eventually.

"I didn't." Clarke bites her bottom lip. "I didn't. And he's the best person I know, and I realized it was unfair to string him along waiting to feel something that I might not."

"Was he angry?" Raven asks.

"No." Clarke shakes her head, blinks back tears. "He was . . . understanding. We don't really talk much anymore, except about homework, and it's my fault. I just. I told him I needed time. I felt guilty, and I felt like being around him and not being with him was selfish. I wanted to give him space. I wanted to give him time to . . . get over me?"

Bellamy snorts and Clarke shakes her head. She actually does smile this time. "Dumb, right?"

"No," he assures.

"A little," Raven says at the same time.

Clarke thinks she probably needed the space more than Wells did, and she thinks maybe taking that space and ducking into the girls' bathroom when she saw him coming down the hallway was unnecessary.

But the thing is, Clarke can picture Wells being quietly in love with her forever, and she thinks he'd be okay with that. And there's a selfish part of her that thinks she'd be okay with that, too.

She loves him too much for that, and she knows, realistically, he respects himself too much for that, too.

It's just hard.

It was easier when they were five and in a competition to see who could ride their bike without training wheels first (Wells), or when they were eight and they wanted to see who would be brave enough to jump off the high-dive at the pool first (Clarke), or when they were 12 and they wanted to see who could read the most books in a month (a tie).

It was easier, and Clarke misses him.

"I think at some point you know if you could fall in love with someone," Clarke says.

Bellamy and Raven look at each other, and Raven reaches out with her foot, tapping her toes against Clarke's leg again.

 

 

 

"Hey," Clarke says. Her voice sounds odd, almost rough with disuse. She pulls her textbook to her chest.

"Hey," Wells says. He eyes her warily, one hand still on his locker door. His eyes go bright though, the same way they always do when he looks at her.

"Want to walk to econ together?"

"Sure." He smiles at her, easy. Clarke would read forgiveness there, but she knows Wells probably doesn't think she needs it, would tell her there's nothing to forgive. That's not true, but it's his ways of being kind to her.

She exhales, her stomach still tense. "Don't let me off that easy."

Wells pulls his textbook out of his locker and shrugs before shutting it. "I'm not."

"But you are. I practically ignored you for months because I felt bad. And that wasn't fair. I have no idea what's going on with you. You could, I don't know, have gotten into NASA or turned into a staunch supporter for gun rights."

He laughs, ducking his head. "Neither of those things happened." He nods toward the direction of their class. There aren't many students milling around anymore, and it gives Clarke that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach she always gets when she thinks she's going to be late. "I understand. You needed the space. It's hard to figure out who you are separate from someone you've known your whole life."

Clarke blinks. She'd never thought of it that way. "Who are you?"

"Wells." He sticks out his hand. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you." They shake on it as though it's a deal.

He pauses when they get to the classroom and lets her walk in first. He takes his seat next to her, the one he picked on the first day of the semester because he has always been brave. Clarke centers her textbook on her desk and flips her notebook to the next blank page, writing the date in left-hand corner. "And I can be honest with you, even if there's something you don't want to hear?" she asks.

"Yes."

"Just checking." She bites around a smile. "And you, too. Be honest with me."

"Well," he starts. "I did see you run into the bathroom that time you saw me."

Clarke feels the blood drain from her face. "I'm so sorry." 

"I'm over it." He reaches across the aisle to tap his thumb against her shoulder. "It was kind of funny."

Clarke frowns and scrunches her face together. "Also, I'm really confused and I need you to help me study for Friday's test."

He laughs fondly and rubs at his forehead. "I think I can swing that if we get dinner beforehand."

"Definitely," Clarke agrees. "I missed you," she says, because she did, and because she thinks he deserves to hear it.

"I missed you, too." Wells holds out his hand for a fistbump, and Clarke laughs as she hits her knuckles against his.

It feels a little like coming home.

 

 

 

It's the weekend after Clarke's spring break and the weekend before Bellamy and Raven's. She's back from the Hamptons with tanned skin and hair that looks brighter and blonder -- she doesn't know if the sun bleached it or if it's a result of said tanned skin. It was a good week, nice, but she didn't do enough of her homework for tomorrow, and she's going to be up too late tonight. Clarke can't bring herself to care about reading "Goblin Market" when she remembers how the ocean smells and gets to sleep in her own bed.

And when Raven's in her room. Lying on said bed, head propped up with her hand.

Raven's hair is down, which is rare. Clarke wants to ask why -- expects an answer about it being easier, taking less time in the morning, and keeping it out of her face when she works on cars. She doesn't ask, though. Partly because she likes to think she knows why, and partly because the words get caught in her throat when Raven looks at her, eyes big and soft. It's the angle, Raven on her bed and Clarke standing, rummaging through her jewelry box. The bag's next to it, which is why she's standing here, but it feels like a big step, and she's a bit nervous.

"Are we meeting up on Tuesday?" Clarke asks, grabbing a small, gold earring and rolling it between her thumb and forefinger.

"Um, can't. Busy."

Clarke is about to ask with what, but then she sees Raven bite her lip and push herself up. For all that Raven is unwilling to share, the thing she's most unwilling to share is her time with Finn. Clarke imagines Raven talks about him with Bellamy, tells Bellamy when Finn abruptly cancels their plans or when she helped him ace a test. Clarke doesn't know if that's true, because Raven won't discuss Finn with her at all, won't even say his name. Clarke thinks it's because she had a relationship with Finn and that makes it weird and uncomfortable. Clarke used to be grateful that it was territory they didn't approach, but now she wants to, now she wants to know everything.

She wants to say, "You could do better."

She wants to say, "You are doing better."

But that is awkward and uncomfortable and a statement as much about Bellamy as it is about herself.

"Oh, okay." Clarke says. She puts the earring in, presses the back on and pokes her finger.

"Sucks our breaks didn't match up," Raven offers. Clarke knows that's true, that for all Raven withholds, she is always honest and her face always backs up her words. It makes something surge in Clarke's chest and she reaches for the bag.

"I uh, got you something."

"What?"

"It's nothing big, just your generic touristy gift." Clarke hands the bag over. She simultaneously wishes she'd wrapped the gift while being glad she didn't.

"Right." Raven grabs the bag and it rustles in her hands. Clarke watches her face as she pulls out the necklace: a simple thing shaped like a starfish, white gold and probably, if Raven knew what it cost, something she'd shove back into Clarke's hands. Her face softens the way it does when the sun sets and Bellamy shrugs his jacket off, handing it to her wordlessly. Raven traces it with her forefinger and rubs her thumb over the gold. "Thank you."

When she looks up, she almost smiles, pulls her hair to one side and holds the necklace out. "Help me put it on?"

"Of course." Clarke swallows. She knows what this feeling is. She's sure of it.

She sits down next to Raven, latches the necklace's clasp and presses her mouth to the back of Raven's neck.

When Raven shifts, she lets herself smile, thanks Clarke again, and then kisses her, soft and warm, just like her hand on Clarke's arm.

It's too much all at once, and Clarke touches Raven's cheek, hesitant in a way she hasn't been in a while. There's a vulnerability to this, to her and Raven in her room while her house is empty, to the way Raven's fingers dance along the hem of her shirt, to the way Raven bites at her mouth. And Clarke feels like she can't breathe, air caught and swirling around her lungs, but she always feels like there's too much of it, too much air, like she's going to burst.

Raven kisses her like she knows, like she's going to take in all the air Clarke can't, like maybe she feels the same. Clarke thinks in the space she has left to form coherent thoughts, that maybe Raven's face isn't the only thing that always gives her away.

Raven peels Clarke's shirt off, and Raven pushes her jeans down her legs, and Clarke brushes her nose against the sensitive patch of skin under Raven's bellybutton. Raven's underwear is plain and white and Clarke focuses on that instead of her heart thrumming throughout her body, the way she feels shaky, as though she's never done this before -- this: sex, not this: with a girl, not this: with Raven, not this: in love.

Raven isn't loud, but she tells Clarke when she's doing something right, what she wants. Raven's toes press against Clarke's hip, encouraging. She says: "your mouth, there. Please."

It is the _please_ that breaks her, makes her feel like she's unraveling.

Raven comes and her hands curl against Clarke's bedsheets, her toes digging into Clarke's bones. Clarke catches enough to see the way Raven bites her lip but not much else. Clarke can feel it, almost, feels the ghost of it between her thighs, the blinding white of Raven's orgasm and knowing she did that, she made Raven feel good.

"Thank you," Clarke says, kissing Raven's thigh.

"Thank you," she says, over and over, caught in her throat like a stutter.

Raven manages to get her off, too, mouth against her collarbone and two fingers crooked in her, palm against her clitoris.

When Clarke drives Raven home, before Raven gets out of the car, she smirks a "you're welcome" against Clarke's ear.

And, because it's funny and apropos, Clarke thinks: I'm fucked.

She goes home and then goes to meet Bellamy at the diner, her parents raising their eyebrows at her while they put away the groceries.

She wants to see him, simple as that.

That's not true, really, Clarke almost admits that to herself -- almost. The closest she gets is: _I'm fucked_.

 

***

 

As a history enthusiast -- whatever -- Bellamy understands cause and effect, the ripple effect, one thing leading to another. It starts when he slides into the seat next to Raven in pre-calc, realizes he lost his pencil sometime between third and fourth period, and asks to borrow one. She looks at him with distrust, makes a snide remark as though he's hitting on her, but gives him a pencil anyway. It starts when he studies the arc of her ponytail, watches her scribble in the margins of her notebook -- scribble is putting it kindly, mostly she just shades the margins in, pencil moving hypnotically back-and-forth, back-and-forth. Sometimes she traces over her notes, making an eight thick and bold. It starts when he meets her under the bleachers.

It could start when he gets a text from Clarke asking to meet him at the diner. That's the beauty of the ripple effect.

He knows it's important because Clarke's text has too many commas. She's the only person he knows who texts with commas, besides his mom, but usually her messages are grammatically impeccable. This time, she sends one too-long sentence riddled with punctuation. He worries. Doesn't let himself imagine what could be wrong, because he knows he'll come up with unlikely and ridiculous scenarios that will spike his blood pressure.

When he arrives, Clarke's already sitting in their booth. She's tan, her hair pulled messily into a bun on the crown of her head. When she sees him she smiles, too wide, eyes restless. She looks happy, and she looks good, and Bellamy slips in on his side. He tosses his car keys onto the table, and they slide but don't hit the wall. "Did you order yet?"

"No. I told the waiter I was waiting for someone." Her smile settles, as do her eyes, and Bellamy bites down on the urge to tell her he missed her, to tell her she looks good.

"Are you hungry?" He wants to ask if she's okay, but he doesn't want to come out and say it. Bellamy thinks it's something he's learned from Raven.

Clarke shakes her head, grabs a plastic bag sitting beside her, and places it in front of him on the table. "I got that for you. It's not anything special, but."

"Thanks." Bellamy reaches inside, pulls out a picture frame with waves on the bottom, metal shells around the rest of it. The photo inside is of a generic family on the beach. "Did you bring the family back with you, too?"

Clarke blinks at him. "The pictures are in the bag."

"Right." He pulls out the small stack. There are three of them, and Bellamy immediately realizes they're pictures Clarke has taken with her phone. There's the one she took of the two of them in the diner the day she ordered the kitchen sink -- a giant conglomeration of ice cream, fudge and whipped cream that comes with a bumper sticker and three maraschino cherries -- and forced him to help her finish it. They're holding the bumper sticker up; their shoulders press together, and Clarke looks triumphant. She's got a smear of whipped cream on her nose because she thought it gave the picture authenticity. The second photo is the three of them: Clarke and Raven and himself, the three of them, that Clarke asked a stranger to take the Saturday Clarke met them at the gallery she loves. They're standing in front of the painting, recreating it, because Raven thought it was funny, thought it looked like some sort of soap opera. They're all trying to keep standing and keep straight faces, holding each other's legs up. It's a little blurry because they're about to fall over in an attempt to contort their bodies into the right positions.

Bellamy's never seen the last picture before. It's just of him and Raven in the high school parking lot. Raven's hand on his wrist, looking up at him like maybe it's one of those days she forgot a textbook or folder she needs in her locker. It's nothing special, not really, but it makes him feel almost like he can't breathe. Because Clarke's not in the shot, but she is, she pulled out her phone -- or maybe she already had it out, he doesn't know -- and took a picture that makes something mundane, probably, feel intimate. It's Bellamy and it's Raven and it's Clarke, too.

She knows. Bellamy and Raven both know she knows:"She figured it out. Big deal. She's not going to tell anyone. Relax," Raven had said once, waving her hand around as though he'd ever been the overly cautious one in this relationship. And that had felt monumental, too, like they'd found Clarke, or she'd found them, or they'd found each other, and she'd fit like she was meant to be there all along.

"Thank you," Bellamy says again, running his thumb over Raven's face.

"You're welcome." Clarke exhales and he shoulders relax. "I wasn't sure if you'd think I was creepy."

"Oh, I definitely think you're creepy, Princess." He smirks.

"Like you have room to judge."

Bellamy runs his tongue over his teeth. "Fair enough."

Clarke smiles, but then she seems to remember something. She looks down at her hands, folded carefully on the table. She sits very straight, the way she'd been sitting when she had Raven and him over for dinner with her parents.

"Hey. You're fine," he says.

Clarke exhales, mouth barely parted. "Yeah."

"Now, tell me all about the rich snobs your Grandma introduced you to."

She rolls her eyes, but her body slumps forward, just enough to make her look comfortable and relaxed. Clarke tells him it was too cold to go swimming, but she did walk along the beach almost every afternoon. She tells him about going to the shops that were just opening, the shops that are always open, the shops that hadn't opened yet because it's not the start of the season. Bellamy likes this, the way her face lights up when she talks about reading _A Thousand Acres_ , sliding her copy, slightly worn in a way that indicates it was new when she bought it, across the table for him. She recommends it.

Clarke leaves when she gets a text from her parents about being home for dinner.

She hugs him outside the diner, the wind making it feel colder than it is because spring has finally bloomed -- a ridiculous, cliché thought. Clarke is warm, and her chin digs into his shoulder. When he kisses her cheek he lets his mouth linger against her skin, also warm, like she soaked up so much sun some of it is still radiating off her. 

He's driving home, Clarke's copy of _A Thousand Acres_ on the passenger seat, when he realizes she never did tell him what was wrong.

 

 

 

Raven's hands grip the steering wheel while Clarke and Bellamy trade places. Bellamy slams the door to the backseat harder than necessary. "This was my idea."

"And it's my car." Clarke twists her body to look at him. "If she crashes it, I'm the one who has to explain what happened to my parents."

"Come on," Raven scoffs. "I took drivers ed."

"A year ago," Bellamy points out before buckling his seatbelt. Raven turns to glare at him. "I wouldn't have suggested this if I actually thought you were going to kill us."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." She faces forward again, ponytail swinging in the way that always makes him want to run his hands through it, untangling the knots around his fingers before pulling the elastic out.

Bellamy is both grateful and frustrated that Clarke suggested they switch positions after Raven had told him he was making her nervous -- the same clipped cadence she uses when she makes a mistake she thinks she shouldn't have. He wants to prove that he can be a good teacher, but he couldn't help the way he clutched at the door, especially when she took a right turn too sharply. And maybe, right before Clarke offered to sit in the passenger seat, he'd told Raven very sternly -- he had not screamed -- to slow down 40 feet before a stop sign. 

"I think there's a neighborhood up ahead. Let's have you drive around there to get used to the car," Clarke says. She rubs her hands against her jeans. "Sound good?"

"Yeah, I can do that," Raven says, almost like she's saying it to herself.

She releases the parking break and the car starts rolling out of the spot she'd crookedly pulled the car into. The church's parking lot is mostly empty, and she's at no risk of hitting anything, but it seems like her foot's not on the gas at all. Clarke turns the radio down a little and Bellamy tries to ignore the twist in his gut when Raven pulls up to the street and puts the blinker on.

Raven's not a bad driver, even if she tends to accelerate and decelerate quickly, causing his entire body to jerk with it. She does a good job staying centered in her lane, she understands the inner-workings of cars more than most people on the road, himself included, and seems to instinctively be able to tell when something isn't quite right. He tells himself his anxiety is mental. It's more about knowing that Raven's permit expired two weeks ago, that her mom never found the time to drive with her, and that she hasn't driven a car since the last day of drivers education, than any comment on her actual abilities.

Clarke's not a bad teacher. She offers about as much encouragement as small correctives, and when Bellamy itches to tell Raven she took a left turn too wide, Clarke lets her course correct herself, and by the fourth one it's smooth. He still notices the way Clarke's shoulders and neck have tensed, wants to take his thumb and press it between her shoulder blades.

"You want to drive us back to the school?" Clarke asks.

"Sure." Raven flexes her hands on the wheel and rolls her shoulders back.

When they return to the school parking lot, Raven attempts to park in an empty area and makes it into the lines on her first attempt, but the angle is wrong, the back of the car almost in the next space.

"Good job keeping us alive, Reyes," is what Bellamy says, sliding across the backseat and opening the car door.

Raven unbuckles her seatbelt and mumbles something that sounds very colorful.

He watches Clarke and Raven hug goodbye, the way their bodies press together, Clarke's eyes closed over Raven's shoulder. Her nails clutch tightly at the fabric of Raven's sweatshirt. He watches Raven whisper something, can see her mouth moving by Clarke's ear, and Clarke's face lights up with it. He watches Raven brush her mouth at the curve of Clarke's jaw, quick and fleeting. When Clarke pulls always her hands trail along Raven's arms like she doesn't want to let go.

Bellamy understands.

He's never asked Raven when her relationship with Clarke became physical, but he knows if he did Raven would shrug and tell him without hesitation and without explanation. The only thing she ever tries to sidestep with him are her feelings and the way he feels about her. But he's never asked, doesn't really care, and has no intention of making her feel guilty.

He's not _not_ the jealous type, and it's not that he doesn't see the way Clarke and Raven look at each other sometimes, because he does, the way Raven clenches her jaw like she's trying to contain it, the way Clarke's eyes shine. He likes that, and he likes that it has never changed the way Raven sometimes lets her guard down and exhales when he brushes some hair off her forehead and sweeps his mouth over her temple, her eyes closed like she's afraid to look at him. It has never changed the way Clarke hits his arm and huffs out an annoyed laugh when he insults one of her favorite books.

It has never changed his relationship with either of them, and sometimes it seems like it has made them better.

If he is jealous of anyone, he knows it's Finn -- not that Bellamy would ever admit that out loud, because he knows it's embarrassing. He worries that Finn will get his head out of his ass and Raven will leave him. That's how the stories always work, right? The husband never leaves the wife. Bellamy doesn't even need Raven to leave Finn, he has never intended to put that on her, and he has always remembered offering up the idea, remembers the unfathomable look on her face when he did, like that would kill her. He is jealous that Raven isn't afraid to tell Finn she loves him, that Finn has gotten all of her, every loud and scalding part, every vulnerable and cold part.

Bellamy doesn't expect more. He can't believe he's gotten as much as he has.

People like him are never this lucky.

 

 

 

Clarke has this frustrating way of getting under his skin. Mostly because she always needs to be right. And it makes Bellamy want her to be wrong.

" _Citizen Kane_ is definitely the best film of all time. Ask almost any critic," she says, as though someone with a journalism degree should have the definitive opinion about how he should feel about a movie.

"Why should I care about some jackass whose last words were the name of a sled? It's not profound." Bellamy rolls his eyes.

"The way you can see the dissolution of his marriage through the scenes at the breakfast table," Clarke says. Her chin tilts up as though she just played a trump card. "And shot composition!"

"If you're bored the entire time you're watching it, does it matter?" Bellamy takes sip of water. He feels that familiar itch, annoyance and adrenaline. He likes it. He knows Clarke likes it too, her face flushes with it and she huffs out a breath. "It's not saying anything that means anything."

Clarke pulls out her phone, swatting at a piece of hair that dares to fall in front of her face. "The human condition," she mumbles.

"You could say that about literally any movie."

"Here." She shoves her phone at him. She's pulled up the American Film Institute's 100 greatest films of all time list. "See."

Bellamy glances down. "You're telling me you like _Citizen Kane_ more than _Casablanca_?"

"I didn't say it was my _favorite_ , I said it was _the best_ ," she answers, tone almost like she's speaking to an idiot.

"You're talking objectively?"

"Yes!"

Clarke starts to smile, her small victorious one that's a little bit arrogant. It's his favorite.

"You realize film is a subjective medium, right?"

"Just because I like the sketch I did of city hall better than Monet's lilies, it doesn't mean my sketch is better."

"Your favorite piece of art is a sketch of city hall that you drew?" he asks, just to be an asshole.

Clarke glares at him. "No. I'm saying you have to have objective criteria on which to judge a piece of art."

"Why?"

"Because otherwise people will tell you to waste two hours of your life watching _Showgirls_."

"You've seen _Showgirls_?" He raises an eyebrow and smirks.

Clarke's face scrunches together in a brilliant display of disgust. "Of course not.

"Then how do you know you wouldn't like it?"

Her cheeks darken. "I hate you."

Bellamy sits back and his smirk grows into a grin. He tamps down on the urge to fold his hands behind his head. "Okay." He waggles his eyebrows and Clarke rolls her eyes. She doesn't cross her arms over her chest though, doesn't pull back. Bellamy relaxes into a normal sitting position and watches Clarke gulp down some water. "What's your favorite movie?"

Clarke eyes him like she can't decide if she wants to drop the argument or not. Finally, her forehead smooths out. " _The Lion King._ "

"Leagues better than _Citizen Kane_." He smiles at her so she knows he's not trying to be smart.

She smiles back. Her eyes are so blue, her hair falls in waves past her shoulders, and she shrugs like she's going to let him have this one instead of give him a lesson on film editing. And that gets under his skin in a different way, no less enjoyable than the first. He wants to kiss her, lean across the table and kiss her for humoring him, for wanting to be right all the time but not rubbing it in his face when she undeniably is, like that time he thought the lyrics to that one Fall Out Boy song Octavia wouldn't stop listening to were "lonely god complex" instead of "loaded god complex."

She pushes a french fry toward him. "Take the olive branch."

Bellamy wants to kiss her, and he thinks he's been in denial about it for a while. He picks up the french fry and folds it in half before popping it into his mouth.

He takes the olive branch, and he doesn't kiss her.

 

 

 

Raven's nails dig into his abs under his shirt. She leaves marks, and Bellamy knows her well enough to know that she doesn't do it just because she knows he likes it, which he does. She also does it because she likes it, likes the physical evidence of them, of what they are.

He mouths at her jaw, teeth scrapping over skin, when he breathes: "So, about Clarke."

He feels her freeze beneath him, body going rigid. Bellamy can't read her mind, he can guess, but he can't know why. He doesn't know why she flattens her hands against him like she's preparing to push him away. He thinks this was the worst time to do this, to bring it up. He thinks about Finn, and how Finn is with Raven and how Finn was with Clarke, like Raven was somehow not enough for him. He thinks about how he brings it up when he's about to fuck her, but she's enough.

Shit, he thinks.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit," he says, pulling back, hand still on her arm. "Shit."

She laughs.

"Raven, I didn't mean--"

"I know," she says, voice thick, understanding but sharp. "What did you mean."

He exhales, runs a hand through his hair. He loves her. That's how he wants to start this conversation, with a declaration: I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you, you're enough and I love you. He knows he can't do that, knows Raven would read it as a confession, that it would make Raven finally push him away, get up and leave. She knows, Bellamy is sure, but he knows that her knowing and him saying it reside in two different areas of morally grey, one she finds acceptable and one she thinks is not.

He sits back and Raven pushes herself up onto her elbows. Bellamy's still straddling her, and he runs his thumb over her chin. "I've been thinking about Clarke." He watches Raven closely and takes it as a good sign when she snorts. "And I know we're," he pauses, sweeps his arm around his room when he can't think of a word to fill in the blank. "I like her, too."

"Too as in you like me and you like her, or too as in I like her and you like her," Raven asks, voice steady.

Bellamy shrugs. "Both."

He itches to touch her, but he wants to give her space to process.

Raven bites at the corner of her mouth, looks up at him, face flushed. "I think about her sometimes when," she says, and he knows what she means, he knows when 'when' is. "And I think about you sometimes."

Bellamy swallows. There's a lump in his throat and he settles his hands on her waist, doesn't squeeze or let his nails bite into her hips, doesn't slip his fingers underneath her shirt, trace the strip of skin that makes her squirm.

"It's okay," she says. "I trust you."

She leans forward and kisses him, just a press. He leans his forehead against hers. "Me too."

She kisses him again, slow and languid. Raven pulls him back down and bites his bottom lip, bruising and hard.

When she flips them over she scrapes her teeth along his jaw: "Don't fuck it up."

 

 

 

Autoshop begins to feel warm with the weather, like the air-conditioning isn't as strong in this part of the school. Some days Raven keeps the garage door open. It looks out onto the section of the parking lot reserved for faculty and staff.

He can't help but think there was a time when she wouldn't have left that door up for anything, not even if it was a 100 degrees in here. She wouldn't have wanted to risk it -- but they're friends; everyone knows they're friends, and everything knows they hang out in autoshop after school. There isn't a story here because there shouldn't be. Raven wouldn't let anybody start one.

Clarke sits in the opening of the door, occasionally turning her head and looking out onto the scattering of cars at the stoplight. Her hair blows in the breeze and she hums under her breath. "This is nice," she says, not looking at Raven and Bellamy where they're sitting in the usual spot. Raven's knee only bumps into his when she jostles the pre-calc book on her lap.

"You want to go somewhere?" Raven asks.

"Where?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. We don't have to stay here."

Bellamy almost says autoshop only became the norm when Clarke did, only became the norm so she'd always know where to find them. Instead he says, "We could just walk around."

Raven bites on her bottom lip and looks at him like she's about to protest. He can hear all the things she's not saying: only Monty and Jasper and Octavia know about Clarke. There's a story there, and Raven wouldn't be able to stop it with a sarcastic comment or vague threat. "Whatever," she decides, slamming her textbook shut. Her knee hits Bellamy's. She's so bony.

The three of them don't really fit on the sidewalk, so Bellamy walks a pace behind Clarke and Raven. He watches Clarke flex her fingers by her side, the way Raven tilts her head when Clarke says something she thinks is funny, how Clarke pauses when they get to a crossroads and lets Raven lead. It's not quiet, not really. Clarke tries to explain elasticity as it pertains to microeconomics, and Raven pretends that Bellamy almost ran a pedestrian over on the way home yesterday -- he did not. The light was green, had been green, and the boy was not paying attention. Bellamy slammed on the break, and so did the person behind him, and no one was almost hit by a car. The track team is practicing, and a car blasting rap music passes by followed by a car blasting country. It's not quiet, but it feels like it is. It feels like it's mid-July and the summer heat has slowed everything down.

They end up under the bleachers, and Raven leans against them, smirking at Bellamy.

He rolls his eyes.

"We should go to the lake this weekend," Clarke says.

"Can't." Raven scuffs her foot against a patch of ground where the grass has worn.

Clarke presses her mouth together. She swallows and her face does something Bellamy has never seen it do before. Then: "What're you and Finn doing?"

Raven's head snaps up. Her face flashes between anger and sadness before settling on a hard indifference, her jaw clenched and mouth flat. "Don't."

Clarke opens her mouth. "I--"

"Hey," Bellamy interrupts. He takes a step toward Raven and brushes his hand against her hip. "Clarke and I are gonna get some water. Meet you back at autoshop?"

Raven swallows and she taps her knuckles against his hand. "Yeah. Fine."

Bellamy and Clarke get inside the building, walking all the way around to the front door, before Clarke stops. Her eyes are wet but she's not crying.

"It's not your fault," he says. "She doesn't." Bellamy shakes his head. "It's not good. Things aren't good with them."

"Right, but I want her to tell me that."

"Why?"

Clarke furrows her eyebrows. "Because it's part of her life. I feel like there's an entire, important part of her life I don't know anything about. You get to know about it, why don't I?"

Bellamy exhales, and he thinks under different circumstances he would call her out on thinking she's owed information about something that has nothing to do with her. "She doesn't talk to me about it, either. I don't think she talks about it to anyone."

Clarke blinks. "That doesn't seem very healthy."

"Thanks, doc." He tilts his mouth up and tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. "Look, I wouldn't bet on her ever wanting to have a heart-to-heart with you about Finn."

"Yeah." Clarke shakes her head. "It was stupid of me to think--"

"No."

"Yeah." Clarke scrunches up her nose and smiles before wiping under her eyes. "It's just hard, being close but not . . . you know."

"I know."

"Thanks, Bellamy." Clarke pushes up onto her toes and hugs him.

It's too long and she pulls back slowly, lingering.

"If you ever want to complain about it though." He laughs, a little bitter. "I'm here."

They walk back to autoshop slowly, and Bellamy can tell Clarke's nervous, whether because she's trying to think of what to say to Raven or not, he doesn't know. He puts his arm around her shoulders when they get to the door and hugs her close. "Go get 'em, soldier."

She groans.

Raven's looking through her phone, but she shoves it into her pocket when Clarke opens the door. "Sorry," she says, voice high. She clears her throat. "It's, uh, two years but. No plans yet. I'll text you if it stays that way."

Clarke blinks and then looks at Bellamy. Her eyes are wide and she frowns. "Yeah." She looks at Raven again, nods. "Just let me know."

 

 

 

Raven's got her hip propped against his locker and she's looking down the hall with blank eyes. Her shoulders slump, and her mouth droops in the way it does when she's exhausted. Her backpack's by her feet, one foot on a strap, keeping it in place when a kid walks by and hits it. Raven shifts her foot but doesn't actually move her body or the bag.

"Hey," Bellamy says.

She blinks a few times before moving out of the way. "Hey."

"Good weekend?" They didn't get a chance to talk in pre-calc, and he's not going to say anything, but he has never seen the bags under her eyes look so dark.

"No."

Bellamy opens his locker and starts shoving books around, trying to remember what homework has to get done tonight and what books he needs to do it. "You look like it."

"Thanks," she drawls. He turns toward her, and she crosses her arms over her chest, face hard. "Not everyone has perfected the tousled, unwashed hair look you have going on."

"Cute." He decides to bring his history textbook home, zips up his backpack and shuts his locker, leaning down to pick up Raven's bag and hand it to her. "Want me to take you home?"

"God, no." She rubs at her temple. "Let's just sit somewhere."

They walk in a circle around the school twice. Raven vetoes autoshop because it's "hot as hell in there" and doesn't want to go outside because "allergies." Eventually the hallways clear out enough, and they sit down in front of Bellamy's locker, Raven's legs stretched out in front of her. She doesn't take out a book or a worksheet. She presses her mouth into a straight line and stares at the row of blue lockers on the other side of the hall.

Bellamy thinks about saying something, pushing, but he doesn't know how to do that in a way that wouldn't cause her to shut down and shut him out. He thinks maybe Clarke would be able to do it. Instead, he pulls out _Macbeth_ , opens to the next act he has to have read for tomorrow, and skims over the left side of the page -- all annotations and definitions.

He's just starting to focus when Raven asks, "How was your weekend?"

"Fine." He shrugs, closing the book and shifting to look at her. "Got dinner with Clarke on Saturday."

"Oh?" She doesn't raise an eyebrow, but she might as well have.

"Oh," he mimics back. "Just got dinner. I think she was bummed you never called."

Raven's jaw ticks. "I'm surprised you didn't call me to help you study for the test."

"You think I'm that stupid?" he asks. He does raise an eyebrow now. "Or did you need my help?"

"You're obnoxious." She rolls her eyes, but her shoulders drop a little. "And, I'm sorry, who is getting a 98% again?"

"I bet you didn't even study."

She shrugs. "I redid some of the practice problems."

"And you'll still get a better grade than me because you're an asshole."

"And you're a sore loser." Her mouth twitches up and her eyes get a little brighter. She yawns. "Wanna make a bet?"

"What?" he asks.

"If I beat you then you, I don't know, you buy me a milkshake." She rubs at her right eye and smooths her hands over her shorts. Her fingernails look bitten and her hands haven't been that dry since winter.

"And if I beat you?" He won't. He hasn't gotten a better grade than her all year. He's not dumb, and he's not terrible, and he tries, but Raven's got the brain for it.

"I don't know. What do you want?"

Bellamy watches Raven's face carefully when she asks, the defiance in the tilt of her chin and the joke in her eyes, the way they crinkle but she doesn't smile. He settles on: "A burger."

She sticks out her hand for him to shake. "Deal."

When she lets go she rummages through her backpack, and Bellamy goes back to _Macbeth_ , and then, when he's not expecting her to say anything at all, she whispers into her lap: "He remembered. Two whole years." She hits her pen against her knee once. There's a small dash of ink by her thumb that wasn't there ten minutes ago. "I wish he didn't."

"That bad?"

She shakes her head and pulls her bottom lip into her mouth. "Not bad."

She pushes herself up, makes an excuse to go to the bathroom, and Bellamy thinks he understands. If Finn isn't cheating, and if Finn is remembering their anniversary, and if he's being a generally Good Boyfriend as far as these things are concerned, what does that make Raven?

 

 

 

Clarke hums and scrolls through the songs on Bellamy's old ipod, legs crossed like she's a child during storytime.

It's the first time she's ever been in his room, but she hasn't looked around, at least not in any way he's noticed. She simply plucked his ipod out of his hand and made herself at home. And Bellamy thinks he should feel awkward about it, but he doesn't. His mom's at work and Octavia is out with Jasper and Monty, probably getting high, but he's working on trusting her and letting her "expand her horizons," as she had said. He thinks that was the wrong turn of phrase to comfort him with, but he gets her point.

The house is quiet and still in a way that makes Bellamy's head go fuzzy. When Clarke looks up at him, he's leaning against the doorjamb like it's her room and he's waiting for permission to enter, and her smile is crooked. "Genie in a Bottle?"

"Octavia."

"C'est La Vie?"

"Octavia."

"Toxic?"

Bellamy can't help but smile when he looks down. "Just a classic."

Clarke laughs before pushing herself up and setting the ipod on his nightstand. "You know, there's a lost of angsty emo music on there."

"And that surprises you?"

"No." She twists her mouth and shakes her head before stretching her arms out in front of her, standing on her tiptoes for a moment. "You always seemed very . . . dramatic."

"Did you mean self-absorbed asshole?"

Clarke shakes her head again and pulls at her shirt. She's got presence, not a large one, really, and not even a demanding one. Bellamy thinks it's a mix of confidence and something else he can't pinpoint, and he wonders if maybe it's just him who feels it.

"Is that how Raven put it?" she asks, and Bellamy remembers that maybe he's not the only one who feels it after all.

"Many times."

"She's the worst," Clarke says, soft and fond just like her eyes.

"She does this thing where she gives me a backhanded compliment, purposely making it sound as insulting as possible. And then she smiles like she's the best person you'll ever meet." Bellamy clears his throat.

"Laughing at her own jokes," Clarke offers. She takes a step forward. She breathes in and Bellamy can see it in her posture; she straightens and raises her chin. "When she kisses you, does she run her tongue against the bottom of your teeth?"

Bellamy's stomach flips and he curls his hands into fists until they hurt. He released them.

Maybe it's that bravery in Clarke that is so demanding -- or maybe it's just a lack of filter, a willingness to take the conversation somewhere he and Raven wouldn't, because it's awkward and socially weird and makes them uncomfortable. 

"Yeah. She does this, this thing where she--" Bellamy takes a step closer, moves his hand to the back of Clarke's head and under her hair: "pulls when she does it." He tugs gently on her hair and feels her breath hitch.

She looks up at him, her eyelashes long and dark. "I think she's gentler with me."

"Fuck," he whispers.

"Yeah." He can feel her breath on his chin.

He kisses her, and it's not soft or gentle, but it's not hard or aggressive either. Bellamy tightens the hand in Clarke's hair and puts the other on her waist, presses his thumb under her shirt and against her skin. She makes this noise in the back of her throat like she's surprised, but that doesn't make any sense.

Kissing Clarke is a lot like arguing with her, she's intense and contrary and her mouth is hot and quick. Bellamy hardens embarrassingly fast once she moves onto his bed and pulls him on top of her. She keeps making these low noises, which is different for him because Raven is always so quiet. He likes it, he likes the way she gets louder and less inhibited as he peels off her clothes, licks at her nipple. Her face flushes and he kisses her, just a reassuring peck, and she puts her hand on the back of his head and pushes him back down instead of pulling.

It's good, more than, and Clarke comes easier than Raven, or Raven has taught him well, or there's something about this feeling, as though they've been standing on this precipice for months, an inevitability, and now that they've dangled a foot off the ledge, they might as well jump. He learns that Clarke likes his body pressed along hers, likes the tactility of it. She likes to be kissed, and he learns that she comes with a sound ripping from her throat, almost inaudible but still somehow so loud.

He learns that she likes to cuddle after, rolling to grab his ipod from the nightstand and pulling his arm around her. He splays his hand over her stomach, thumb pressing against her bellybutton, and this is different for him, too.

Not good different or bad different, just different.

Bellamy brushes a kiss against the back of her neck and Clarke asks why "Semi-Charmed Life" is one of his 25 most played songs.

 

 

 

Octavia's at her last dance practice, and Raven agrees to go out for ice cream.

When Bellamy suggests it, he doesn't expect Raven to agree, he expects an excuse about needing to study for a history test or finish work on an engine. Clarke's smile he expects, and he thinks that's part of what pushes Raven to nod and grab her bag with a "Why not." He wants to think she agrees because she's just as unsure about where they go from here, but she probably hasn't put much thought into it.

Instead of worrying about it, Bellamy has decided it's going to be fine. He's decided that, in this specific instance, he believes in fate or destiny or things working out the way they're supposed to no matter what. It's not particularly consistent with what he thinks of those things other times, but he'll give himself a break.

"Mr. Wick helped me get a job at a garage," Raven says, running her spoon around her bowl of ice cream, just scraping off the edge almost like she's peeling an apple. She sort of shrugs.

"That's exciting." Clarke bites at the corner of her mouth. "Where is it?"

"Just at Mecha, along 75th."

"That's not too far. Maybe I could visit." Clarke flips her spoon before putting it into her mouth, the ice cream hitting her tongue directly. When she pulls the spoon out her lips make a popping sound.

"Maybe. It's really not exciting. I don't want to work on cars for the rest of my life, but, you know, it'll look good on a college application."

"Definitely." Clarke nods once, smiling. "And maybe you can teach me how to change a tire."

Raven chokes. "You don't know how to change a tire?"

"I mean, I practiced once in driver's ed., but I don't really remember." A beat. "Stop looking at me like that."

Bellamy's mouth twists up. "I think she's just surprised."

"You know how to change a tire, right?" Raven turns toward him. Their thighs are pressed together and he wants to sling his arm over the back of the booth, let his fingers fall against her shoulder. It's stupid and he knows he's not allowed -- that's probably why he thought about it in the first place.

"Yes." Bellamy rolls his eyes. "What, do you think she'll get a flat in the middle of nowhere and get murdered by a man with a chainsaw?"

Raven rolls her eyes right back. "Probably."

"Hey!" Clarke protests. The affront on her face is so comical Bellamy feels his smile widen. "I can take care of myself. There's pepper spray in my purse."

"Raven's the one who thinks you're gonna die because you don't know how to change a tire," Bellamy says. Raven hits him in the arm and it almost hurts.

"Whatever. At least she's not lying about it."

"Why do you think I'm lying?

"You want to go out right now and show me?"

Bellamy can definitely change a tire, but he's also certain his technique, or lack thereof, will be critiqued. And while Raven taunting him can be fun, he thinks he'd rather watch a few Youtube videos, practice, and taunt her about how she was absolutely wrong. "I'm eating." He scoops some ice cream onto his spoon and waves it around.

Clarke makes an aborted sound in the back of her throat that he knows is laughter.

"Sure," Raven drawls.

"You've got a job at the pool, right?" Clarke asks. Some melted ice cream drips at the corner of her mouth, and she wipes it away with her tongue. Her face is eager and sincere, but her mouth is pursed, and he can see her calculating something in her head, tapping her left hand against the table the same way she does when she works on her math homework.

"Yeah." He nods. "Octavia's got a job there, too. Makes it easier."

"We'll have to visit."

"I wouldn't want to drown while Bellamy's on duty," Raven says. She spreads a hand on her thigh and her pinky touches his leg.

"I'm not a lifeguard," he reminds her. "I help with paperwork."

Her nose wrinkles. "Can you give us free popsicles?"

He's about to say he can give Clarke free popsicles -- he can't -- but then the pressure of her pinky gets a little heavier on his thigh, moving back and forth absently. "Whatever you want."

"I like cherry," Clarke offers. She tilts her bowl to scoop up the last of her mint chocolate chip. "It's a deal, then. We'll stop by."

When she looks up, her face is serious, eyes focused. Her toes tap against his foot. He glances under the table, at her other foot, toes tapping against Raven's. Clarke is the one who doesn't know what this means for the three of them and refuses to stop thinking about it. It reminds Bellamy of football season ending and being terrified Raven would stop hanging out after school, of being terrified she'd keep hanging around after school.

They haven't talked about a lot of things. They've all pretended to be on the same page, and they've all spit out the basics one-to-one-to-one when necessary. But he knows it's not enough, that Clarke's right: their schedules will change, and even if they'll see each other, it won't be the way it is now: steady and expected. Something's got to give. He just doesn't know what.

 

 

 

Bellamy pulls the car into the driveway, puts it in park but doesn't cut the engine. Octavia turns to grab her backpack off the backseat. "Wait," she says, letting her bookbag slide back down, this time onto the floor. "What are you doing?"

Bellamy presses his foot down harder on the break. "I have to pick up Raven."

Octavia clucks disapprovingly. "Shouldn't her boyfriend be giving her a ride?"

"That's none of my business," he says. "And it's none of yours."

Her eyeroll is spectacularly dramatic, and she frowns in a way that reminds him of their mother when she's disappointed in him, like that time he was babysitting Octavia, got too caught up in mapping out Roman battle formations, and she chopped off her bangs. It hadn't been a particularly bad look, but it definitely didn't make her any friends.

Her frown deepens and then she sighs, and Bellamy thinks she sounds disappointed, too.

Octavia knows him well enough to know that something's going on with Raven, and she's got a moral compass that points north enough to keep him from saying anything about it directly -- not that he would, anyway; it really _isn't_ any of her business, and he doesn't want his younger sister to lecture him on ethics and morality and Poor Finn. Bellamy's almost positive that despite Octavia's oft utilized "but you did it first" argument, she would not accept it as a sufficient excuse. And he thinks she probably shouldn't.

He probably shouldn't be in a relationship -- correction: situation -- where he needs an excuse.

"You're wasting gas." She leans into the backseat and pulls her backpack forward, opening the car door and getting out. She leans back in: "Not that I mind being home alone for a few hours, but Bellamy? Don't be an idiot."

She slams the door shut, and he blinks before watching her dig her house key out of her bag's sidepocket, opening up the front door.

He shakes his head, runs his hand through his hair, and looks over his shoulder.

He keeps thinking about it as he drives back the way he came: Octavia's face, eyes almost sad, like she knew he was already being an idiot. He can hear her: "Full idiot status achieved." It's the most she's ever said about the situation, like she knew offering unsolicited advice would get her nothing but an argument. The closest she ever got before was yanking open the passenger door and telling Raven to "get in the back" in a clipped, tired voice.

She's right, is the thing that bothers him. For all that he thinks Finn has wasted something special, he knows Octavia is right.

She's right, and he's wrong, and instead of being angry, he just feels helpless.

When he gets to the school, he cuts the engine but doesn't get out. Instead, he waits.

The silence makes his skin crawl in a way it normally doesn't, and his phone vibrates but he doesn't pick up. He knows who it is, and he likes to think he knows what she wants. It probably reads: _Are you here_ or _I'm almost done_ or _I'm finished_ , something impersonal and bland, first word made capital by her phone, no punctuation.

When Raven finally knocks on his window, he's been waiting for almost thirty minutes.

"Get lost?" She shuffles around the car and gets in next to him, slamming the door shut. "What?"

"Octavia knows," he says dumbly.

"Knows what?" Raven asks, edge to her voice. He can hear the seatbelt click and he turns the key in the ignition.

He wants a sense of motion. He wants to feel like they're going somewhere.

There are two places they could go, because if he wants to be cynical about it, they'll be together forever or it'll end.

That's not the whole truth, because there are ways they could be together forever, and there are ways it could end, and both of those ways could be the same.

He turns the key because he wants a settled endpoint to the fight they're about to have.

"Knows that we're a -- whatever it is you want to call it."

"You're being ridiculous," she says. When he glances at her, she's looking out the window, arms crossed over her chest. Her ponytail splits over her shoulder and her jaw lifts confidently.

"You don't care?"

"No."

"What if she tells Finn?" Bellamy asks. He wants it to sound mean, wants to spit out Finn's name like venom. He doesn't. It's even and it sounds more like he's on the verge of begging Raven for something.

Raven turns her head, but he can't tell if she's looking at him or not. The break lights on the car ahead flash, but then the car speeds up and makes it through the yellow light. "You think she will?"

"No."

"Okay. Then what are we talking about?"

"Us." Bellamy chokes on the word.

"It's nothing."

Responses that Bellamy thinks to say as he accelerates: a petulant and childish "Fine," a petulant and childish "A nothing that made you come twice in less than five minutes last week," a petulant and childish, high-pitched imitation of "it's nothing." He almost says, "I love you, you know?" Because he does, and she does, but because of both those things, he just keeps driving.

He ends up with: "Whatever you want, Raven."

It's not the fight he expected or wanted or feared, but then, Raven has always been good at surprising him.

"Hey," he says, parked in her driveway, reaching over and brushing his knuckles against the back of her arm. "See you tomorrow."

She doesn't smile, but she repeats: "See you tomorrow."

 

 

 

He should go home.

He goes to Clarke's.

When he gets there, he rings the doorbell but no one responds. He sits on her porch. There's a swing, but he doesn't sit on it, and he waits. The sun is low in the sky, but it hasn't started to set when Clarke pulls into the driveway, the garage opening. He gets up, leans against the center pillar of the garage and looks in. There's a trashcan pushed against one wall, a freezer, a metal shelving unit with tools and, inexplicably, an unopened jar of apple juice. It smells vaguely like woodchips, the kind on his elementary school playground.

Clarke gets out of the car, her face worn and tired. "Hey," she says, pulling open the door to the backseat.

"Hey." He pushes off so he's standing straight. He feels silly. "How was student government?"

"Fine." She ends up crawling into the car, one knee on the seat as she reaches for her bag. "Prom's planned, so there's really nothing left to do. The seniors are in charge of their class gift."

When she emerges, she slings her bag over her shoulder and closes the car door with her hip. Her braid lies flat over her shoulder, and she licks at her mouth. "You want to come in, or you planning on standing in my garage all night?"

Bellamy smirks. "The garage is good."

She sighs. "Let me put this inside, and then we'll go for a walk."

Her neighborhood looks like something from a 50s television program: green grass all cut to exactly the same length, flowerbeds around the mailboxes, houses that look identical sans for the color of siding, brick or stone. There aren't any kids playing in their yards though, no one riding a bike or playing catch or drawing with chalk. Bellamy shoves his hands into his pockets and squints into the sun.

"Prom's theme is Can't Stop the Moonlight, which I think is _nice_ , but a little . . . expected," Clarke says, breaking the silence.

Bellamy shrugs. "Our theme this year is just Smile."

Clarke's eyes narrow. "What?"

Bellamy grins, big and fake, and he points: "This thing. It's a smile."

Clarke shoves him. "Shut up."

"Did you even have a better idea?" he asks.

"I'm saving them for my prom."

"Of course."

Clarke bites at the corner of her mouth like she's trying to hold in her own grin, and Bellamy bumps his shoulder against hers.

"So, what did you want to talk about?" She pulls on the end of her braid and looks at him like she doesn't already know. Her eyes wide but focused, face plain and open.

He reaches out and grabs her hand, lacing their fingers together. Her hand is warm and her palm is soft and she squeezes gently. "I'm in love with Raven."

Clarke squeezes his hand again.

Saying it out loud is strange, hearing the words in his own voice is strange. He's used to thinking it, over and over, a chant, the words clear and loud and certain in his head. But they curl oddly around his tongue. He's never told anyone he's loved them before, besides his mom and Octavia, and there's a weight to it. It doesn't shake the earth, and it doesn't launch a thousand ships, but he can feel it heavy in his chest. When Clarke smiles at him, he thinks he likes it.

"Good," she says.

"I love you."

It's not an afterthought and it's not even meant as reassurance. Clarke and Raven haven't gotten muddled in his head. Bellamy sees them as two separate people: Raven is hard and bursting with so much love and confidence that it scares her; Clarke is hard in a different way, has always felt loved and never once considered that maybe she wasn't worthy of it. He loved Raven before he loved Clarke, and it was more than enough. He loves them both now, and it's more than enough. He thinks if Raven decided to leave him -- leave him, absurd language that feels right and possible -- Clarke would be more than enough. But he loves them both, and they're entwined, and Bellamy likes that, he thinks they're good for each other, and they're good for him. He's scared he'll get used to it, both because the loss will scar if he does, and because he's afraid it will stop feeling monumental, stop feeling like stuff to write down and remember.

Clarke laughs, but not in a mean way. She laughs like he's in on the joke. "Me too," she says, voice high and lilting. "I love you, and I love Raven."

Bellamy exhales, smiles, and lets her gently lead him as they turn to cross the street. "So, what does that mean?"

Clarke shrugs. "I think it means we love each other."

He snorts. "I got that."

"We'll figure it out," she says, swinging their hands a little.

"What if we don't?"

"We will." She lifts her chin, and her eyes are blue and wide, but she doesn't smile. Her mouth is set the same way it is when she's writing an essay across from him at the diner, when she's confident and focused and ready to work for something. "We just have to talk about it."

"Good luck with that, Princess."

Clarke rolls her eyes where Raven would have reached across her body to shove him. "You don't believe in me?" She raises an eyebrow and licks at the corner of her mouth. It's unfair, honestly.

"No, that's not it." He can see her house on the other side of the road: the brick encasing the mailbox, his car parked on the street in front of it. He needs to get home and make sure Octavia didn't sneak off somewhere to do god-knows-what. He needs to call Raven.

"I believe in her, too. That's why I think we'll figure it out," Clarke says. She pulls him across the street, pushes him against his car and kisses him, her mouth a gentle but assuring press. She smiles against his lips, his breath gone ragged because he's embarrassing. "See you later."

He checks Raven's text: _Wanna get fries? I'm buying_.

He receives one from Clarke when he pulls into his driveway: _If you hurt her, I'll kill you._

Bellamy bites back a grin.

 

 

 

It's Tuesday. 4:24 in the afternoon. Temperature in the low 80s. Not very humid. Five days since the last day of school.

Bellamy keeps listing the facts in his head, because he can't wrap his head around it. He can't wrap his head around Raven's mouth smeared over his, standing on his porch -- if you can even call the slab of concrete in front of his house a porch.

Octavia answered the door. "It's for you," she hollered. She didn't let Raven in.

Raven's hands bracket his face, her body pressing against his, and her mouth forceful yet yielding. When she breaks away, her breathing is heavy and one of his hands is up the back of her shirt, the other on her waist. It's indecent, he thinks. Her skin is warm and a little sweaty from the heat. The sun is too bright and the sky is too blue and Raven blinks at him, her eyelashes black and long.

"You gonna invite me in?" she asks, an amused edge to her voice, a shade of happiness. She smiles, teeth so white and mouth so wide and mouth so pink.

He fumbles for the door handle, afraid to turn around, like maybe she's a mirage. Heat stroke is a thing, and they haven't turned the air conditioning on yet. He left the door open when Raven threw herself at him -- and she did, her body lunging forward and Bellamy stumbling with the force of her -- and he pushes it back too hard and it hits the wall. "Come in."

They sit on the sofa and watch whatever episode of _The X-Files_ Octavia is on, Raven's knee pressed against his thigh, sitting too close together for the small fan they have buzzing in the corner of the room. Octavia spreads out on the floor, inching toward the cool air as the episode goes on. It's quiet, simple, and Bellamy pulls at the strand of hair that's fallen out of Raven's ponytail. When she shifts and stretches her arms over her head, she elbows him in the face, and he swats at her shoulder.

Bellamy makes popcorn, and Raven makes a big deal about being able to throw it into the air and catch it in her mouth. Octavia makes a big show about learning how to do it, missing about 75% of the shots she makes. Bellamy tries once or twice, misses once or twice, and lets himself fondly roll his eyes when Raven says, "you suck," and Octavia tells him, "practice makes perfect, big brother." Octavia complains about missing the first half of the next episode.

Raven gets a text from Clarke and says she has to go: "She's picking me up."

"Okay."

When she gets up off the sofa, Bellamy follows her down the hall and onto the porch. He leans down and presses a kiss to her cheek, lets his fingers dance along the inside of her wrist. It feels like the most reckless thing they've ever done despite how she greeted him.

He doesn't know if she had a fight with Finn, or if she was bored, or if she missed him because they hadn't seen each other in two days.

He doesn't know she broke up with Finn because she doesn't tell him. Octavia does, three hours after Raven's left, carrying her laptop into his room -- not even bothering to knock -- and shoving it into his face, pointing at where Raven's relationship status has changed.

Octavia whacks him upside the head on her way out and it hurts. He doesn't know whether she means it as "congratulations" or "you dick" or some combination of the two.

 

***

 

It starts, much to Raven's chagrin, under the bleachers.

They're at the park across town, the one with a field and bleachers on each side for the park district's soccer games. When Raven was in first grade she begged her mom to sign her up, and she played on a team with Finn, his parents doing most of the shuffling to practice and games. She was the top scorer on the team, and Finn got stuck playing defense a lot -- when you're in first grade, no one cares much about defense -- and he quit the next year, and so Raven did, too.

School's out and there are kids on the playground shrieking and singing, and Raven holds the joint between her fingers, sitting on the grass. The blades are sticky and itchy against her legs, and she shifts a little. Clarke's lying next to her, sandals slipped off her feet and toes kneading against Bellamy's shin. She's half-giddy, giggling and plucking up grass, throwing it over her and letting it rain down like confetti, and half-annoyed. It's a weird combination.

"I think O's seeing someone," Bellamy says, his legs outstretched. He's leaning back on his hands, and he's scowling at Raven like this must be her fault. It hasn't been summer long, the first weekend since the public schools let out, but his freckles are already more pronounced.

Raven shrugs and takes a drag.

"Good for her," Clarke says. As she's pulling up another handful of grass, her fingers brush against Raven's thigh.

"No." He rubs a hand over his face before reaching out. Raven passes the joint and licks at her lips. "I think it's her boss."

"Unethical," Clarke says. Raven can hear the smile in her voice, and when she looks over, Clarke's grinning, face turned into the grass.

"Exactly. I don't like it. He's older."

Raven rolls her eyes. "Leave her alone."

"She's my sister," he says, as though that means his behavior is totally rational and warranted.

Clarke's groan is muffled. "I'm going to fail my econ final and get a B." Raven smiles and pats her head. Clarke takes this as an invitation, scooting over, lifting her head and resting her cheek on Raven's thigh. She's pouting, eyes narrowed. "Stupid economics."

Raven laughs and it hurts, scratching its way up her throat. She watches Bellamy inhale, his mouth dark and pretty. "Stupid economics," Raven agrees.

Bellamy exhales smoke and a long-suffering sigh, handing the joint back to Raven without her having to ask. Clarke nuzzles against Raven's leg, her breath wet and warm. Raven runs her fingers through Clarke's hair. Someone's crying, and some mother is yelling, and a cloud must move in front of the sun, because now its all shade and not just where the bleachers cast their shadows. Raven closes her eyes and brings the joint to her mouth. Soon her stomach will gnaw, she can feel it.

"You're my favorite," Clarke mumbles.

"Raven's hand stills and she hums. "What?"

Clarke turns and looks up at her, serious and simple. "You're my favorite." She shifts to look at Bellamy. "And you, too, I guess," she says, almost sarcastic, but there's a smile tucked into the corner of her mouth, and she squirms awkwardly to get her feet in his lap. She breathes something that sounds kind of like "Three musketeers."

She falls asleep pretty soon after that, a stupidly cute, disgruntled expression on her face that slowly relaxes as Raven continues running her hand through her hair. Bellamy smokes most of the joint before gently moving Clarke's feet, standing up and sitting down next to Raven. He hands her the end of the joint. As she inhales and holds the smoke, he presses the pads of his fingers against her cheekbone. She exhales and he leans in, presses his mouth to her jaw. She gives him the bud and her crushes it with his foot, and Raven leans her head against his shoulder.

It's too warm. She can feel a patch of sweat soaking through her shirt at the small of her back, and she wants to stand up and rub at her legs to get the itch of the grass off. She's hungry now, ravenous because of the weed more than anything else, and the foot under the leg Clarke's sleeping on is starting to go numb.

It's nice.

Raven feels small, but not in a bad way, and she feels light and fuzzy, ready to float away. It's partially the high and, she thinks, partially not.

"Let's get food," Bellamy whispers, reaching over her lap to nudge at Clarke.

Bellamy and Clarke hold hands on the way to the food stand. It's a long walk, and Raven hates that Bellamy wouldn't just let Clarke drive them somewhere, but when she looks at their hands, she feels it in her chest, warm like the sun on her face, and any anger seeps away.

It's different from what Finn did -- and she tries not to think about him when she's with them, because that's an entire thing that she doesn't want to face -- and not just because Bellamy asked. It's different because Bellamy still kisses her after he's eaten her out, mouth wet but still so hungry, eyes always this side of cocky and awestruck, as though Raven is something to be in awe of, something to love. It's different because Clarke has started sending her goodnight text messages with emojis Raven can't see on her phone, sending follow up messages explaining what the emojis are. It's different because she doesn't feel like a habit, one they're too lazy to break. It's different because she doesn't feel left out.

Clarke buys Dippin' Dots even though Raven tells her they're a rip off, and Bellamy buys a giant bottle of water for them to share, a bag of chips for Raven, and neither Bellamy nor Clarke argue too much when she refuses to let them buy the cheese fries that she forces them both to eat. She and Clarke scarf down most of them, and Bellamy practically pours the water down their throats after.

Bellamy's thigh presses against hers, and Clarke reaches across the table to wipe cheese from the corner of Raven's mouth with her thumb, and Raven's coming down from her high and she thinks: this is what I want.

 

 

 

Raven feels sick and shaky and sad when she rings Finn's doorbell.

It's after noon, and he should be awake by now, or awake enough to hear the doorbell and answer it. Raven's been up since her mom banged around the kitchen before heading to work. She slept fitfully, kicking a thin sheet off and then pulling it back over her body. She thought making this decision would clear everything up, make her feel better instead of worse. She thought letting the choice be her own would make it hurt less.

She has to ring the doorbell again, and again and again, before she spots Finn limping down the stairs.

"Hey?" he asks, pulling the door open wider. He rubs at his forehead.

"We need to talk." She feels like she's choking, and she swallows how obvious she sounds.

Finn frowns, but leads her into the kitchen without another word. Raven sits at the table while he starts a pot of coffee, pulling out two mugs from the cabinet next to the stove. She remembers that he gets one for his mom every Christmas and every year for her birthday.

She remembers that she loves him.

"I won't be that long," she says.

Finn stops, looks at her with concern and pulls out the chair next to hers, spinning it around and straddling it, arms crossed over the back. "Is everything okay?"

"Yes," she assures, out of habit, maybe. She shakes her head. "And no."

His eyebrows pull together and he starts: "Raven, what is--"

"Finn," she cuts him off. "Do you love me?"

"Of course I--"

"Finn." She shakes her head. She can feel her heartbeat quicken, and she bounces her leg under the table. "Are you in love with me?"

She waits.

She's met with silence. He swallows, runs a hand through his hair, opens his mouth, runs his tongue over his bottom lip, and then closes his mouth again.

It feels like someone punched her. It feels like that time when she was three and her mother shoved her out of the way because Raven wouldn't stop crying, when Raven clung to her leg and her mother kicked her off. It feels like their anniversary, how he walked her to her door like some movie that isn't her life, kissed her on the cheek and left with a simple "Goodnight," as though it was a first date and not two years. It feels like a lot of things that have nothing to do with Finn and a lot of things that do.

The truth is she loves him, too, and she thinks she's still in love with him -- not the way she was at first when it was burning, and not later when it was warm, and not even after that when it was cold. But she isn't sure, can understand that she has loved him almost as far back as her memory goes, and that it's difficult to parcel out what that love was and what it meant, when it changed and what it is now. She can understand that for herself, so she can understand that for him.

But god, it hurts.

Raven's vision blurs and she blinks. "Okay."

"Raven, I'm sorry. We don't--" He reaches out to touch her and she shakes him off.

"We do. I deserve better." She wipes at her eyes because it's embarrassing, and Finn's eyes are wet but he's not crying. "You deserve to be with someone you're in love with."

The chair creaks when she pushes herself up, and Finn grabs her hand when she turns to go. "I love you," he says. "And I'm sorry."

"I know." She nods, squeezes, and he lets go.

When she walks outside, a wall of hot air hits her and she starts crying in earnest.

She goes home and lies on her bed, cries herself to sleep and wakes up less than an hour later feeling sad and feeling loss.

Raven feels something else, too, and she thinks it's a good thing, something akin to possibility.

 

 

 

There's a shift. It would be a lie to say there isn't, even though Raven thinks it'd be nice if that was the case. No shift means nothing is different, means she isn't different, means you take Finn out of the equation and it has no effect. Raven wants that to be true, but she knows it's not.

The shift comes in Raven accepting the friend request Clarke sends on Facebook, the shift comes in kissing Bellamy anywhere she damn well pleases: his front porch, the pool, the coffee shop. The shift comes in Clarke linking their arms together when they walk, even though Raven thinks it's awkward and weird and middle school. Raven doesn't flaunt it, still wants it to feel like hers and Bellamy's and Clarke's, but she wants it to feel like theirs without it feeling like a secret.

It's not a secret.

Raven's happy.

She misses Finn, but she thinks she understands what Clarke was saying about needing space. Bellamy and Clarke aren't bandages or replacements, but things are good with them, and she's happy.

Bellamy's lying on the ground, parallel to the sofa, and Clarke's sitting by his head, her back resting against the couch as she flips through an astronomy magazine she brought with her.

"Tell me my horoscope," Raven says from the sofa. She's lying opposite the way Bellamy is, her head on the arm so she can look at them.

"That's not in here," Clarke says, not looking up from the page.

"Why not?" Raven asks. "They don't want you to have any fun while you learn about dark matter and black holes?"

"You can read your horoscope in any other magazine." Clarke marks her spot with her finger.

"But you'd think _Astronomy Magazine_ would have a better chance of being right. Or spewing some scientific junk at you while pretending it knows what the next month will be like. It'd be educational. Mercury's at its peak, or something."

"You want me to get the issue of _Cosmo_ someone left at the diner? My mom brought it home for Octavia," Bellamy says.

"Did it give you important insight into female sexual desire?" Raven asks, waggling her eyebrows.

He reaches up and smacks at her leg. "You're a real pain in the ass."

"That's not a no," Clarke says. She smirks, and Bellamy reaches up to shove at her, too.

"Now you'll never know if you should be open to new opportunities, or if you should keep your head down and focus on work this month."

"I think I'll survive," Raven retorts.

"Maybe you won't."

She's about to tell him maybe _he_ won't and possibly roll off the sofa onto him, but she hears the garage door opening and stops. "What the hell?"

"What?" Clarke earmarks the page she's on and closes the magazine.

"I think my mom's home?" It's a question, and when she blindly grabs at her phone to check the time, it's early. Her mom's shift usually doesn't end for another three hours.

But, sure enough, her mom pushes open the door, smiling wide. "Hey, Raven, I-- oh. Hello."

She looks as put together as she ever does. She has her vest slung over her forearm, purse shoved behind her with her elbow, hair falling out of the barrette she uses to pin it back. Her lipstick is faded and her eyes are sunken and tired, but the way the wrinkles crinkle around her eyes when she grins offsets it. She stumbles, but it's from trying to step out of her shoes and not intoxication.

"Hi," Raven says. "What're you doing home?"

"It was a slow day. I bought some things to make stuffed poblanos. Do your friends want to stay for dinner?"

"It's like, two in the afternoon."

"Oh, right." Her mother shakes her head, smile fading. "Well. If they want. The invitation is there." Before she leaves the room, she gives Raven a pointed look that she doesn't know how to interpret, but it seems to be something along the lines of "don't embarrass me," which is ridiculous.

It's a good day, which helps. She could've come home drunk or high or half-dressed with a guy hanging off her arm. But Raven already feels embarrassed. Clarke's parents have advanced degrees, well-paying jobs and a mansion for a house. They cook a nice sit-down dinner for Clarke every night, take her on fancy vacations and love her. And while Bellamy understands not having a dad, his dad died in a car accident soon after he was born. His dad didn't leave halfway through his mom's pregnancy like Raven's. Bellamy has an outstanding invitation from his paternal grandparents to visit the Philippines. His mother works two minimum wage jobs, has similar dark circles under her eyes as Raven's, but she brings Octavia old magazines, bakes cakes for Bellamy and Octavia's birthdays and loves them. Raven thinks her mother loves her when she feels like it, which isn't really love at all.

"We don't have to stay," Bellamy says, pushing himself up with his elbows. "We can go."

"Your mom seems nice," Clarke says, eyes kind.

Raven shakes her head. "Yeah, let's go upstairs."

They play Sorry because it's the only board game Raven owns, and Clarke gets super competitive, which only make it funnier when Raven wins the first game and Bellamy takes the second. Clarke mutters, "stupid luck," under her breath. Clarke and Bellamy get into an absurd argument about Monopoly, and Raven can't believe she's so attracted to two nerds. Clarke french braids Raven's hair, and Bellamy goes through her underwear drawer.

Dinner's announced when the fire alarm starts going off in the kitchen. The three of them practically run downstairs, where Raven's mom is on a chair trying to turn off the alarm, the stuffed poblanos on the counter looking surprisingly edible. There's a bottle of vodka about two-thirds empty sitting next to them. Her mom's hair is stuck to her neck and her eyes are dilated.

She unscrews the fire alarm, throws it onto the kitchen table, and then carefully climbs off the chair. "Close call, huh?" She saunters to the sink like it's nothing and takes a swig of vodka.

The food's good, at least.

Her mom mixes the vodka with Pepsi she brought home, and when she finishes it, she slams her glass onto the table and looks between Clarke and Bellamy. "Which one of you is screwing my daughter? I hope it's you." She points to Clarke. "You won't knock her up."

Clarke drops her fork, her eyes widen and her face pales. "I, uh."

Her mom waves her hand and tilts her head. She looks up through her eyelashes at Bellamy. "You're probably into older women, anyway."

Bellamy's face registers disgust. "Not so much." He takes a sip of water before pushing back his chair. "We have to go." He grabs Clarke's hand and she stands up too fast, hip bumping into the edge of the table.

Raven swallows and looks down at her plate, the smear of cheese and black beans. 

"Raven," Clarke says, voice shaking. "Come on."

"What?"

"Let's go." Bellamy nods toward the front door and Clarke holds out her hand.

Raven takes it.

Bellamy sits next to her in the backseat of Clarke's car as Clarke drives. Raven looks out the window, her entire body tilted toward it. She wants to apologize for her mother, but she thinks if she tries she'll start crying. Clarke eventually pulls into a parking garage downtown. It's packed, and they're on the top level. The sky is dark and cloudy and Raven can only make out a few stars.

"Do you see that one," Clarke says. She's turned off the car and unbuckled her seatbelt, shifted so she's looking in the same direction as Raven. She points. "The bright one?"

She helps Raven find The Big Dipper, and then Ursa Major. Bellamy grabs her hand and runs his thumb over her knuckles.

Clarke asks Raven if she wants to sleep over, and Raven declines, and then they drop her off at home, and before Raven loses her nerve she says, "Thank you."

 

 

 

Raven's back from the garage, grease spread on her forehead. She's making a peanut butter sandwich in the kitchen, hip against the counter. When she gets some on her thumb she sucks it off, scrapping at it with her teeth. Her legs, embarrassingly, ache a little. The walk from her house to the bus stop, and then the bus to the shop, can't be more than a mile. She can feel her eyes drooping and contemplates whether it would be an excellent idea to take a nap, or if she'll be up until three in the morning if she does.

The doorbell rings, and she's trying to get used to it. Where it used to be an anomaly, there's Bellamy, coming over at odd times between his job and hers.

When Raven rounds the corner, she sees both Clarke and Bellamy standing there, and Clarke smiles when she spots Raven.

"Did we have plans?" she asks. 

"No." Clarke shakes her head. "Just stopping by." She bites at her mouth and looks at Bellamy in a way that makes Raven nervous.

"Sure." Raven shrugs. "I was just getting something to eat. You want anything?"

"I'm fine," Clarke says.

"Water." Bellamy half-smiles.

"Okay." Raven shakes her head and resists the urge to roll her eyes. She doesn't fail to notice how close they stand to each other, shoulders almost brushing, while she finishes her sandwich and gets two glasses of water. "You can sit down."

"We're fine." Clarke nods and shifts on her feet.

She looks slightly terrified, and Raven tries not to think about why. Her mind jumps to: they're together. Bellamy and Clarke are in love, and they're dating, and she is alone -- alone-alone. No Bellamy, no Clarke, no Finn. She doesn't entertain the thought long, because she's awesome, and because it makes her knees go all wobbly. She clutches at the counter and raises her eyebrows. "Okay."

She tells them about her day as she eats, pulling the crust off the bread and popping it into her mouth. Bellamy keeps taking tiny sips of water, hand never leaving the glass, and Clarke rests her chin in her palm, nodding too enthusiastically when Raven knows she doesn't find mechanics or cars that interesting. Raven tongues at the last bit of peanut butter stuck to the roof of her mouth, and Bellamy tilts his head back, tapping on the bottom of his cup to get out the last drop of water.

"Okay, what's going on?" Raven asks.

"What do you mean?" Clarke goes all doe-eyed and Raven snorts. "Okay, fine."

Clarke sits up straight and folds her hands together on the table. Bellamy touches her wrist and then exhales. He and Clarke look at each other, and she tilts her head. Bellamy takes it as a cue to scoot his chair closer to Raven, but he doesn't touch her.

"The theatrics aren't helping," Raven says.

Clarke bites at the corner of her mouth. "Right. Sorry. So, you and Bellamy have a thing. And you and I have a thing. And Bellamy and I have a thing." Clarke pauses and looks at Raven like she's giving her time to process that last piece of information. Raven just blinks.

"I love him," Clarke says. She looks at Bellamy and smiles, mouth pressed together, and Raven feels something lurch in her chest, and she doesn't know if it's bad or good or if it just is. "And I love you." She turns her attention back to Raven, smiling the same close-mouthed smile. Her eyes are wide and bright and Raven sees her swallow.

"I love you," Bellamy says. He catches Raven's eye, reaching out and grabbing her hand. "I love you," he says again. "I love you, and I love Clarke."

Raven feels something building, her stomach twisting and making it hard to breathe. She squeezes Bellamy's hand, and she inhales and exhales. She doesn't feel scared, although she thinks maybe she should. She feels anxious, but in a good way, adrenaline kicking in. Her mouth upturns.

"I was thinking," Clarke starts and then motions toward Bellamy. "We were thinking that the three of us could date. Together." Her shoulders relax and she's staring at Raven. "You don't have to say anything, I mean, if you're not ready, or you need time to think of--"

The chair scrapes and squeaks when Raven leans forward, half over the table and half over Bellamy, squeezing his hand as she presses her mouth to Clarke's. "I love you," she says.

Even with everything that's happened, Raven has always found love to be good. In some ways freeing, and in some ways painful, a heavy weight slumping shoulders, but good. She thinks if she could, she would suck up all the love in the world and store it in her body, scoop out her chest to make room for more. And there is something -- more -- about Bellamy's hand splaying over her back, his other hand on Clarke's knee, Clarke's hand cupping her cheek and Clarke's mouth frozen into a grin against her own. Maybe Raven doesn't need all the love in the world, and maybe she doesn't have to hollow herself out for it, maybe this is all she needs, and maybe this is all she wants. Having those two things be the same seems revolutionary and rare.

Maybe, in this small way, she is lucky.

 

 

 

They're in Clarke's room with her big bed and the door closed. Her parents are at work.

"I'm cold," Clarke says.

Raven gets it, the air conditioning is turned up, blasting through the vents. There are goosebumps on Clarke's arms and she's not wearing socks.

"Do something about it," Bellamy suggests. He's sitting back against the headboard, one eyebrow raised and that smarmy smirk on his face. Raven and Clarke both groan, but Clarke stops riffling through her dresser drawer and comes over to the edge of the bed, hands on her hips. "Princess." There's a challenge there, and Clarke leans down, pressing her mouth to his.

Raven pulls her bottom lip between her teeth. They look good. His hand working its way into her hair, her breasts brushing against his chest, the little whine in the back of Clarke's throat that Raven only hears because the song playing from Clarke's laptop ends and the next one hasn't started yet -- and because she's learned to expect it. Clarke crawls onto the bed and Bellamy groans an "ow" when she knees his thigh. She's straddling him, and her hair forms a curtain, and Raven feels her breath catch in her chest.

Clarke reaches her hand out, and when she touches Raven's arm, she pulls her closer and breaks the kiss, breathing heavy, eyes already dark. Her fingernails dig into Raven's skin and Raven half-rolls and have skids across the sheets. Clarke kisses her with no preamble, mouth open and tongue slick. Raven pushes herself forward and her head bumps into Bellamy's, and he makes another sound like maybe it hurt.

"You're so hot," Clarke says into her jaw. Raven can see her hand pressed just above Bellamy's jeans, her fingers moving as she tries to get them under his shirt.

Clarke kisses her way down Raven's body, sucking on her neck, scraping her teeth over her collarbone, fingers running over the necklace Clarke bought her at the Hamptons. She's still got a hand running over Bellamy's chest, except Bellamy's kissing Raven's head, and then her temple, and Raven screws her eyes shut, breath stuttering out.

"You okay?" Clarke asks, letting go of Bellamy and reaching up to brush some hair off Raven's forehead.

"Fine," she says, aiming for flippant. She doesn't think she could have missed the mark more.

Clarke smiles, kisses her again, and then fiddles with the bottom of Raven's tank top. Raven nudges her hands away, sits up and pulls her shirt over her head.

Bellamy brushes his fingers over her shoulder, over her bra strap, and kisses behind her ear. "She was right, you know," he says. "About the hot thing." Raven smacks his chest.

When Clarke starts kissing around Raven's bellybutton, fingers itching against the edge of her shorts, Bellamy kisses the corner of Raven's mouth. Raven turns her head and bites his bottom lip. She likes the way he gasps and kisses her harder, like he wants it to hurt. But his hand is soft against her cheek, and she runs her fingers through his hair; it curls with the humidity and Raven yanks, runs her tongue over the edge of his teeth like he might just cut her open, like she's daring him to.

Bellamy starts working a hand under her and Raven arches her back. While Bellamy fumbles with her bra, Clarke pulls her shorts down, picks up her feet to take them off, and then kisses her ankle and the knob of bone there. There's something about being touched by two people who love her that makes Raven feel like her heart is thrumming everywhere: in her chest, in her head, between her legs, under her skin. Clarke licks at her through her underwear while Bellamy brushes his thumb over her left nipple. Clarke removes the white cotton while Bellamy licks at Raven's breast.

Clarke crawls up her body and kisses Bellamy again. Raven tugs at their clothes and they take the hint. After they've undressed, Clarke pushes at Bellamy's shoulder and he goes willingly, rolling onto his back, lacing his fingers with Raven's.

Raven sits up, and Clarke kisses her shoulder, asks: "What do you want?"

She almost just repeats the question back at Clarke. Clarke is good at making decisions, and she's good at leading, but she's asking Raven, looking at her with wide eyes and parted mouth like she's not getting enough air. "Bellamy's fingers and your mouth."

Clarke bites around a smile, getting up on her knees and kissing Raven's eyebrow before smoothing it out. "Okay."

Clarke holds Bellamy's dick and leans over to whisper something in his ear. His eyes flutter shut and he grunts, low and gravelly, her hand working him overly slowly.

Raven is instructed to lie down again, and Clarke kisses her and kisses her and kisses her, teeth and tongue, hard and soft. Raven presses her fingers against the nape of Clarke's neck to ground herself while Bellamy bites at the inside of her thigh. She never should've told him she liked that so much, because her body tightens and she can feel his stupid smirk against her skin.

Bellamy gets a finger in her, and Clarke just keeps kissing her. Bellamy gets another finger in her, and Clarke just keeps kissing her, and eventually it's all too much. "Clarke," she breathes.

Clarke pulls back, looking dazed. She shakes her head. "Right. Sorry."

She doesn't sound sorry at all, and Raven likes that.

Clarke gets her mouth on Raven, and Raven can feel where Bellamy's hand and Clarke mouth hit. Bellamy palms at his dick, and Clarke makes this high-pitched keening noise like she's the one being fucked. Bellamy crooks his fingers and Raven bites into her bottom lip and feels it building building building.

She comes when Bellamy presses a kiss to her hip, fluttering and barely there, looking up at her, eyes so dark and so soft and almost too much. Clarke sucks on her clit and brings a thumb up to press against it. Raven feels her breathe out something, and she can't tell what it is, but it makes her entire body go tight and then uncoil. Bellamy crawls his way up her body, and Clarke doesn't stop touching her until she's stopped coming and Raven places a hand on her head.

Clarke has Bellamy lie down again, straddles him and crawls forward until she's over his mouth. She tells Raven she wants to kiss her, and she does. Raven brushes her knuckles against Clarke's clit once. Between Clarke and Bellamy's mouth, it's warm and wet and Raven feels a dull throbbing between her own legs. When Clarke comes she's breathing into Raven's mouth, pressing their bodies together as tightly as possible, shaking and moaning, but the sound is quiet and hoarse, like she's on the edge of losing her voice.

Bellamy rubs one off on Clarke's thigh, her head on Raven's shoulder, Raven reaching over her to twist his nipple. He doesn't last long, and Clarke buries her head in Bellamy's neck like she can feel his orgasm, too.

"We're just going to get better at this," Clarke says.

Bellamy collapses next to her. "I'm doing my best."

Raven laughs, and Clarke reaches up to tap his cheek.

 

 

 

Monty helps Raven get around Facebook's coding, and she, Bellamy and Clarke all change their relationship status. _Raven Reyes is in a relationship with Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin_. It's long, and Raven reads it over and over, mouthing the words. She smiles, wide and ebullient, eyes almost going watery with the force of it.

Twenty-four hours later, Finn rings her doorbell. It's the first time she's seen him in two months. Technically two months and four days, because she misses him and because it's not that hard to count.

He doesn't smile, and Raven swallows the lump in her throat.

"Hey," she says, doesn't follow up with the sarcastic "long time, no see" she would have said to anyone else.

"I need to talk to you."

Raven presses her mouth into a thin line and opens the door wider.

She follows Finn into her living room and sits next to him on the sofa. He wipes his hands on his jeans and shakes out his hair in a way that she finds equal parts endearing and annoying. His shoulders are hunched the same way they always are when he's nervous about something: telling his mom he got into a fender bender, his history final, the first time he asked her out.

Raven waits, tapping her fingers against the outside of her thigh. She sighs, a long, audible exhale. She watches minutes tick by on the clock. "Just say it," she says.

"You know Clarke," is what he says, which really shouldn't throw her as much as it does.

"I-- Yeah."

She expects him to try to skirt around the issue, about how he knows her, and why he knows her, and how he cheated on Raven with her.

"Can you," he clears his throat. "Will you break up with her?"

Raven blinks. She must have heard him wrong. "What?"

"Please," he whispers, looking at his hands, fingers laced together between his open legs.

"Why?"

"Because I love her," he says. He looks up, eyes wide and sad and innocent even though they have no right to be.

It hurts in a way Raven thinks it shouldn't anymore. She broke up with Finn, she's with Clarke and Bellamy, and she loves them. But she feels it all over, icy cold and then hot. She clenches her jaw. "I loved you."

"Look."

"I'm looking."

He has the gall to sigh. "I don't care about your thing with Bellamy. I get it, okay? You've been friends, and he probably listened to you complain about me and whatever, but. I just. I love her, Rae."

Raven scoffs and stands. "You cheated on me for months. I don't care if you love her, Finn. It's not about you. None of it's about you, and none of it's ever been about you."

He blinks and licks at his mouth like he's processing something. "I'm sorry. It's just. It was so hard. I couldn't be everything to you. It was too much pressure."

"You put that on yourself."

"You can keep telling yourself that, but you did. And I tried, okay? I tried."

"Not very hard," Raven spits.

He looks up at her, still slouched over, the sun on his face. It's humid and a sheen of sweat coats his forehead. "I realized--" Finn squeezes his hands together. "I realized that I've know you forever, right? You're like a sister to me."

Raven flinches. He means it as explanation, for the girls and for not being able to touch her those last few months. All she can think about is how Clarke never referred to Wells as a brother, which is a kindness that would probably make the statement more true than Finn's excuse. "That's a lie."

"No, it isn't." He sighs.

"You don't cheat on your sister for months. You punch someone who cheats on her."

"I'm not Bellamy."

Octavia dated Atom for two weeks, and when Bellamy thought he was two-timing her, he grabbed Atom by the collar and threw him against the lockers.

Raven crosses her arms over her chest. "You don't get to do that. You don't get to blame me for this."

"You cheated on me, too." Raven feels her face go hot. "Jasper told me."

"That wasn't about you. It wasn't because you were cheating on me, or because you weren't being 'everything' to me well enough." She rolls her eyes. "It was because I needed to feel something, because I needed to feel worthwhile and wanted. And you were too busy fucking around because I'm too hard to be with to notice for yourself. I love you, Finn, but you're an asshole. Get out of my house." Her bottom lip trembles and her vision blurs. She blinks back the tears because he doesn't deserve them.

Finn stands, shakes his head like he's disappointed in her, and shoves his hands into his pockets. "I'm sorry. We can talk later."

She can feel a yell itching at her throat as she watches him leave, the words angry: Clarke's in love with me.

Raven doesn't say them.

It's not about Finn.

 

 

 

The sun reflects off the lake, and Clarke spreads a blanket onto the grass, still almost damp and soft from the morning's rain. She's packed a picnic basket with lunch sandwiches, bottles of water, carrots, grapes and pretzels. It's so wholesome that Raven almost laughs.

Clarke sits by the water, toes dipped in. By the tilt of her mouth and the way Bellamy cocks his head, Raven thinks they're discussing something and disagreeing. It's fun for them and, honestly, it's fun for Raven, too.

She closes her eyes and tilts her head up at the sky, feels the sun warm on her face. School starts next week. Senior year for her and Clarke, the first week at the community college for Bellamy, who wants to save money and wants to have enough saved for Octavia to go away the year after she graduates.

Clarke's spent the last few weeks working on college essays, asking Raven to read over them each time she changes any little thing. It's scary to think about, but exciting, too. Raven's been waiting for college since before middle school. But she also just wants to enjoy right now. She remembers this time last year, when Finn started looking at her funny, and she was holding on too tightly to something that had already started slipping away.

This year she doesn't feel like she's clinging, as much as a mutual holding on, like holding hands.

"Hey," Bellamy calls.

She opens her eyes. "What?"

"Stop being such a loner."

"It's not my fault you're so needy," she says, but there's already a smile itching at the corner of her mouth.

She grabs a bottle of water and heads over, sitting in the space they open up for her. She lets her toes brush against the water, and Clarke brushes her fingers over Raven's knee. "How's Finn?" she asks, her voice quiet and soft. She likes to ask now, and Raven thinks it's because of all those months when she couldn't, and Raven wouldn't let her.

"Fine." Raven shrugs. "Nothing new."

He apologized, and Raven's working on forgiveness. She wants to forgive him for herself, because he's always been a constant in her life, and because she loves him, even if that love is rusted and bruised, even if that love didn't turn out the way she wanted.

"Okay." Clarke splays her hand, and Bellamy skids a rock across the lake's surface. It ripples, wide circles getting smaller and smaller until it smooths over again. "You think _The Lord of the Rings_ is better than _The Chronicles of Narnia_ , right?"

"What?"

"No, she doesn't." Bellamy flicks at Clarke's hand on Raven's knee, as though it's going to influence Raven's decision.

"The books or the movies?" Raven asks.

"It doesn't matter," Bellamy says.

"The books," Clarke says at the same time, like the films are an affront to her existence.

" _Harry Potter_." Raven shrugs.

Clarke makes a displeased noise, and Bellamy raises his eyebrows. "You can't be serious?"

"If we're playing choose-your-favorite-Christ-allegory, I just know _The Old Man and the Sea_ isn't mine."

"I liked it," Clarke says.

Bellamy reaches out and runs his finger under Raven's eye. "Eyelash, he explains. Raven blinks a few times, and then he holds the eyelash out in front of her. "Make a wish."

"I wish you two would--"

Clarke smacks a hand over her mouth. "Don't say it out loud or it won't come true."

Raven rolls her eyes, feels a little like it's her birthday when she closes them and blows at the eyelash.

Raven is happier than she's been in a long time, but she still has a lot she could wish for: a full scholarship to university, to pass her driving test when she goes to the DMV in a few weeks, that Clarke and Bellamy forget to make her watch all the James Bond movies, not because she doesn't like them, but because she doesn't like their running commentary while she's trying to pay attention.

She could pretend she doesn't think this is a ridiculous exercise in the kind of magic kids believe in when they're young and think the tooth fairy left a quarter under their pillow. And she could pretend that she doesn't feel hope being pumped out of her heart and into her blood stream, that there's not a small part of her that wants this wish matter and come true.

Raven thinks about wishing to feel this happy forever, to be with Bellamy and Clarke her entire life.

She doesn't.

She wishes for something she knows she'll get.

When Bellamy splashes at her, and she and Clarke splash back, when Clarke gets beach towels from the trunk of her car, and when Bellamy pokes at Clarke's side, swiping his from her hands and proceeding to drop it to the ground, when Clarke laces her fingers with Raven's, and when Bellamy drags his mouth over her jaw, she knows she has.

It's silly, but it allows her to believe that wishes come true.


End file.
